The title of the Analects, Lun-yü, 
(論語), of Confucius, we can translate as something like "Discourses and Dialogues" -- Analects, Ἀνάλεκτα, would be "Digest" or "Collection" from Greek, a title apparently introduced by James Legge himself. Here we have sayings and stories from or about Confucius, or sometimes just about his students. It was clearly not written by Confucius or during his lifetime.
This page is not a commentary on the Analects. It merely identifies passages that are famous, often quoted, discussed in books about Chinese Philosophy, or that I consider to be especially expressive for the principles of the thought of Confucius. The translation originally used here was that of Arthur Waley, and there were occasional criticisms [The Analects of Confucius, 1938, Vintage Books, 1989]. Other translations consulted have been those of James Legge [Confucius, Confucian Analects, The Great Learning & The Doctrine of the Mean, from Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1893, Dover, 1971], D.C. Lau [Confucius, The Analects (Lun yü), Penguin, 1979, 1988], and Joanna C. Lee & Ken Smith [The Pocket Confucius, Museworks, Hong Kong, 2010]. The Chinese text used is that of Legge. Dictionary references are mainly to the classic Mathews' Chinese-English Dictionary [R.H. Mathews, 1931, Harvard U. Press, 1943, 1972], with occasional help, for modern usage, from the ABC Chinese-English Comprehensive Dictionary, by John DeFrancis [U. of Hawai'i Press, 2003]. And then there is the tendentious The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation, by Roger T. Ames & Henry Rosemont, Jr. [note].
Originally, passages in the Analects were often referred to here without being quoted because this page was compiled for use in my Ethics or Asian Philosophy classes, where students had the text (Waley's) at hand. Full quotations, with the text in Chinese, have gradually been added, with that task now complete. The last place where the Chinese text was not given, at III:9, is now finished. And treatments of many new passages have meanwhile been added.
The translations of Lee & Smith, which, as here, do not include the whole Analects, are modern, accurate, and succinct, with Chinese text and, uniquely, a valuable transcription in Pinyin. However, the Lee & Smith quotes seem to have been selected mainly for their brief and aphoristic character (not even including, surprisingly, the famous II:4), and the (politically correct) scold might complain that this reduces Confucius to fortune cookie size, or to a script reference for a Charlie Chan movie. Nevertheless, their work is useful and the translations often seem very well informed. Also, the transcriptions of Lee & Smith take into account euphonic changes in tone that occur because of phonetic context. Cases of this are discussed where appropriate, especially with the extended discussion at XVII:25. Otherwise tones are used as given in dictionary entries. My recent work of updating this page was set in motion by the delightful and useful nature of Lee & Smith's treatment, which also brought to my attention several aphorisms of interest that I had not previously addressed.
Wade-Giles and Pinyin writings are both used here a little carelessly, which may be a confusing -- the way to identify each is discussed elsewhere. The pronunciation given with the characters themselves is always in Pinyin, and the use of images to supply both character and reading is the reason why unicode characters are not used here. The ability to read transcriptions in Wade-Giles should be learned for the sake of using older sources. Also, readers should be aware that the Pinyin system, despite its elegance and cleverness, is phonetically redundant (the retroflex and palatal series are allophones) and is thus less impressive than the ancient Devanâgarî syllabary for Sanskrit.
A full exposition of the Chinese terminology of Confucius may be found at the main Confucius page. It is hard to know the proper term for the subdivisions of the Books of the Analects. "Chapters" seems like too much for passages that may be only a sentence long, while "verses" implies too little for those that are substantial paragraphs, while "aphorisms" does not always apply to what is given. Perhaps "paragraph" itself would be the right word, although it does not seem like enough for such a text. The numbering of the "chapters" often differs slightly in different sources, so I have given both versions where that happens.
, The Master said, 
, "Learning with the opportunity to practice," 
, "is it not pleasant?" 
, "Having friends come from distant places," 
, "isn't it delightful?" 
, "Someone who is not known yet feels no frustration," 
, "is he not a superior man?"
As Aristotle begins the Metaphysics by observing that all men desire by nature to know, and we experience delight, ἀγάπησις ("affection, love"), for the senses, the Analects begins with Confucius remarking on the pleasure, 
, of learning and its practice, the delight, 
, in friends (
), and the independence of virtue from fame. These are sentiments the Greeks could appreciate, even if the priorities might be a little different. In the Metaphysics, Aristotle will not be concerned with friendship or fame, although he will get around to those eventually. That the Analects begins with pleasure and delight, even in the face of obscurity, should set a tone, we might think, for Confucianism; but this is not always remembered or observed. Confucian morality is always in danger of slipping into moralism, and it is often only the essentially good natured attitude of Chinese religion, or of Taoism, that serves as a corrective.
Here is the introduction of the 
, literally "son of a prince." This is the "gentleman" of Arthur Waley and D.C. Lau, the older "superior man" of James Legge (or in this instance "a man of complete virtue"), the "exemplary person" of Robert Ames & Henry Rosemont, or the "virtuous person" of Joanna Lee & Ken Smith. It is noteworthy that this first mention of the is in relation to his not being known. The issue of being "known" is otherwise addressed at IV:14, while being known but being ineffective is memorably addressed at XIV:38/41. Many other passages characterize the virtues or attitudes of the , in his own right or in contrast to the 
, the "small" or "mean" person, as we shall see.
The character 
here means "place," but its basic meaning is a "square." The metaphorical significance of the square, much as in English, comes up at II:4 and VII:8. Here, however, we do not seem to go beyond the secondary and less evocative meaning.
James Legge flags the character as anomalous in tone or pronunciation -- in this case both. He uses a circle diacritic, which I have here put in red. The basic entry in Mathews' Chinese Dictionary is for 
in the 1st tone, meaning "speak, say, tell, talk, scold" [character #5939]. But the use we get here is of , in the 4th tone, as "to take pleasure in, pleased," where Mathews' actually quotes the phrase here from the Analects (which is not unusual in Mathews'). In usage now, the character 說 with the meaning in Confucius has been entirely replaced by 悅, yuè, "pleased; contented; gratified."
Legge also flags the character , here rendered "delightful," which is discussed below at VII:15/16, "happy, pleased; pleasure, joy; to rejoice in, feel joy."
Legge does not flag the character 
, but a minor anomaly is involved. We see the pronunciation of the character here as yùn in the transcription of Lee & Smith. However, in his appendix ("Index VII, of Chinese Characters and Phrases"), Legge gives the pronunciation as wan, with the meaning "to be angrily discomposed, dissatisfaction." In Mathews' the entry is under yün4, meaning "indignant; to feel hurt," with the gloss "also read wen4" [character #7766]. So 
is an alternative, solving the little mystery -- "frustration" in Ames & Rosemont and Lee & Smith, "unsoured" in Waley, and "take offense" in D.C. Lau look like the small liberties of translators.
, the Master said, 
, "Clever words and affected manners," 
, "rarely exist in the truly benevolent."
With a career in philosophy, my impression of many in the profession was that wit and clever words could go a long way, or the whole way, in making for success and reputation, in the absence of any actually valuable contribution. This was especially effective in seminars or at conferences and in debate -- although I have also, to be sure, sometimes seen wit in the service of good ideas and presentations that were plodding and dull in the service of poor ideas and arguments. The glib fools, however (e.g. Richard Rorty), do most of the damage to the discipline, which is why I have often thought of academic philosophy as little more than 
, "talk" (Kalâm), the term in Arabic for Islamic theology, rather than φιλοσοφία, philosophía, the "love of wisdom." Indeed, Islamic theology itself was rather more than just talk.
, Tseng Tzu [a student of Confucius] said, 
, "Care for the dead, with rites for the ancestors," 
, "and the virtue [
] of the people culminates."
This passage, with a four character and a five character phrase, seems to involve a considerable challenge for the translators. For , James Legge [1893] says, "Let there be a careful attention to perform the funeral rites to parents, and let them be followed when long gone with the ceremonies of sacrifice"; Arthur Waley [1938] says, "When proper respect towards the dead is shown at the End and continued after they are far away..."; D.C. Lau [1979] says, "Conduct the funeral of your parents with meticulous care and let not sacrifices to your remote ancestors be forgotten..."; and Mathews' Chinese Dictionary [1943, 1972] says, "Carefully attend to the funeral rites of parents and follow them when gone with due sacrifices" [under character #5734, p.795]. The curious thing about these translations is that there are no words in Chinese for "funeral," "parents," "ceremonies," "sacrifice," "respect," or "ancestors." All of these have been supplied by way of interpretation, with Legge putting some of what he has supplied in italics. The first two characters, shen zhong, look like "care dead," which we can expand into "care for the dead," and which would the mean funeral, rites, sacrifice, etc. The next two characters, zhui yuan, look like "follow distant," which could mean that we care for the distant dead, like ancestors, or that we continue our rites over a long period, which includes the ancestors in that way. However, Mathews' dictionary glosses the binome zhuiyuan as "to follow ancestors, when long gone, with the proper sacrifices" [chui-yüan, character #1469:15, p.208]. So this is either an idiom, euphemism, or both; and we get "follow" there with "distant" signifying ancestors. Nevertheless, the gloss seems like a lot for two chararacters, so perhaps we could say, "observe the rites for distant ancestors." Another way to look at the whole phrase is to interpret zhong, not as the "dead," but as "end" (used in Waley's translation) or "complete" with respect to the rites, so that the first phrase is, "To take care and complete the rites for the ancestors."
The next phrase, , begins without as much trouble, since min de is clearly, the "virtue of the people"; but for this and the next three characters, gui hou yi, the translators again display considerable variety. James Legge has, "then the virtue of the people will resume its proper excellence." Waley has, "the moral force (tê) of a people has reached its highest point." And Lau has, "and the virtue of the common people will incline towards fullness." I haven't found a version of this in Mathews'. Gui means "return" or "restore," which implies that the virtue of the people is returned to some previous ideal. But none of the translators use that view of the matter; and, indeed, if we have been observing the rites all along, then the virtue ought to have always been there, not something to be restored. Yi can be translated "perfect," as the translators seem to have "proper" and "highest." So the real trick is with hou, which can mean "profound," "magnanimous," "large," "sincere," and some other things. Legge's "resume proper excellence" may come the closest to a literal reading, with the noted paradox of "resume," although hou does not otherwise seem to precisely mean "excellence," "point," or "fullness," as the translators have it. I have supplied "culminates" to incompass both "large" and "perfect." In the end, we may gather that Tseng Tzu wants us to care for the dead, and not just the recent ones, and that the benefit of this will be to preserve, protect, or restore the virtue of the people. This means taking the rites, 
, seriously, as we are otherwise urged in the Analects, despite a couple of indications that Confucius was ambivalent, as we shall see, about the value of tending to the dead. See also II:5
, The Master said, 
, "He who exercises government by means of virtue," 
, "may be compared to the North Star," 
, "which keeps its place," 
, "and all the stars bow towards it."
A vivid image for how Confucius sees proper government as the application of moral force, that the prince basically need only be possessed of virtue, , himself -- ruling by setting a good example -- although Legge seems to think, "We must be content to accept the vague utterance without minutely determining its meaning." But the meaning, although metaphorical, is consistent with all the rest of Confucian politics, where setting a good example will be the effective practice of 
, "Not Doing," as we see explicitly at XV:4. We even see this more substantively in the following II:3, where virtue and propriety are said to be more effective than laws and punishments.
Here we have the North Star, 
, contrasted with regular stars 
, which bow, 
, to it like subjects to the prince. The expression for the North Star looks a little unusual, since the character following bei, "north," chén otherwise simply means "a division of time" [Mathews' Chinese Dictionary, character #336]; and this is not the expression for "North Star" we find in Mathews' under 
[character #4974]. Legge sounds a little tentative, as he says it is "no doubt, 'the north polar star'." However, this is still the standard expression for "North Star" in Japanese, pronounced Hokushin, so Japanese has preserved the binome that must have been familiar in the time of Confucius and later. Although translations seem to favor the expression "Pole Star," I think the object is now the most familiar in English as the "North Star," which compares nicely to the use of "north" in the Chinese.
Legge marks the character 
as anomalous with his circle diacritic (which I've put in red). But then his treatment is itself anomalous, since in his footnote he identifies it as having the 3rd tone, , which we find in the transcription of Lee & Smith; but then in his appendix of Chinese characters Legge identifies it as being in the 2nd tone. However, accoriding to Mathews' Chinese Dictionary, the 2nd tone is actually not used. The basic character is given in the 4th tone, 
, and defined as "all, the whole; collectively; to share, work together." But in some key expressions it is then used in the 1st tone, as in 
, which can mean "united in purpose, or work together" -- adopted as "gung ho" by U.S. Marines in World War II -- but then also in various terms for "Republic," e.g. 
, and "Communism" in Chinese. Mathews' then lists the 1st tone separately, , as meaning "to fulfil one's duties; respectful"; and the 3rd tone separately, , as meaning "to hold, to fold the hands." Legge glosses this as a substitute for the related character 
, "to fold the hands on the breast, as when making a bow; to bow, to salute." Mathews' illustrates both of them with phrases about bowing to the North Star, although neither with the exact wording of Confucius.
, the Master said, 
, "Lead them by laws," 
, "order them by punishment," 
, "and the people will flee and have no shame." 
, "lead them by virtue," 
, "order them by propriety," 
, "and they will have shame and rectify."
Governing by laws and punishments does not cultivate the virtue of the people. Governing by "virtue" () and "propriety" (good manners, ritual, ) does. A good expression of the ideal of Confucius to rule by good example, since the virtue and propriety are characteristics of the ruler himself. Laws and punishments are things he would impose on the people, which gives them no particular reason to obey or to feel obliged to. The last character, 
, "correct, rectify," is translated reflexively and variously. D.C. Lau has "reform themselves"; Arthur Waley has "come to you of their own accord"; and James Legge says, "will become good." This variety encourages me to be simple and literal. The people will simply straighten out.
, the Master said, 
, "At fifteen I set my purpose on learning." 
, "At thirty, I was established." 
, "At forty, I had no doubts." 
, "At fifty, I knew the Mandate of Heaven. 
, "At sixty, my ear was obedient." 
, "At seventy, I could follow what my heart desired," 
, "and not transgress the norm."
Perhaps the most famous passage in the Analects. This list of achievements at different ages has often been copied, or parodied, in Chinese, Japanese, and (presumably, as far as I know) other East Asian (i.e. Korean or Vietnamese) literature. Noteworthy that Confucius did not know the Mandate of Heaven, 
, the moral order of the universe, until he was fifty, which was the age Plato thought that philosophers would be ready to rule in his Republic. Also, the term for what the Mandate establishes is of interest.
Confucius calls it 
, which basically means a "carpenter's square," but then has associated meanings of a "rule, pattern, usage, custom." Thus while this is translated as "right" (which otherwise would be 
) by James Legge and Arthur Waley, or the "line" by D.C. Lau, the association is with rectilinear geometry (perhaps why Lau says "line"), exactly as in English (e.g. "right angle") and Latin (rectus), but not so much in Greek, as I have discussed elsewhere.
I originally chose to translate the character as "square," such as we find in "square deal," "on the square," "fair and square," or even "four square gospel." This would be conformable to the thinking of Confucius, who otherwise gives an example of knowledge as completing a square (cf. VII:8; Confucius supplies one corner, the student is expected to find the other three). However, this gives us very little of the flavor of the character, and "square" in isolation has little to no moral tone to it.
The remedy may be in Latin, where we have norma, meaning, like , a "carpenter's square" but also "any rule, standard." And, even better, from this we derive "norm" and "normal" (Latin normalis) in English, which are used, especially in philosophy, to indicate moral or social standards of behavior. I think this makes for a very satisfying translation, even if the similar origin of the Chinese and Latin words needs explaining.
, Meng I-tzu asked about filial piety. , The Master said, 
, "Never disobey." 
, When Fan Ch'ih was driving, 
, the Master informed him, saying, 
, "Meng-sun asked me about filial piety," 
, "and I said 'Never disobey'." 
, Fan Ch'ih said, "How did you mean it?" , The Master said, 
, "While they are living, serve parents according to the rites"; 
, "when they die, bury them according to the rites"; 
, "and sacrifice to them according to the rites."
The concern here is filial piety, 
, expressed through the practice of "the rites, propriety, manners," etc. Living parents should be treated with ; having died, parents should be buried with ; and the sacrifice, 
, to their spirits, should be performed with . This sequence nicely bridges the range in meaning of from manners and propriety, including obedience to parents, to the "rites" of burial and sacrifice. It also puts us on guard against other sayings here that might be interpreted as calling for neglect of the dead. The Confucian practice of the rites is distinctive, and a particular target of Taoist disagreement.
Meng I-tzu was an offical of the State of Lu, 
, the home of Confucius himself, and a member of a family decended from the Dukes of Lu. Legge explains that the epithet "grandson," 
, was added, like the surname "Fitzroy" ("son of the king") in English, to indicate princely decent. Thus, this passage begins with a bit of the advice that Confucius gives to princes; but then it continues with Confucius relating this advice, and expanding on it, to one of his students. Sacrificing to the parents, in fact to all the ancestors, can involve the major Spring festival of Ch'ing Ming, 
, "Clear and Bright." This occasions a visit to the family graves or tombs, to clean them up, venerate the ancestors, and have a picnic. The practice is called 
, "sacrifice [and] sweep," although the "sacrifice" these days is mostly burning incense and paper money.
A minor curiosity here is that Fan Ch'ih is driving Confucius somewhere. We will see this again at XIII:9, where Jan Yu is driving him. Different characters are used to indicate this. Fan Ch'ih is 
, whose first meaning, among others, is to drive a chariot. Jan Yu, however, is identified as 
, whose first meaning is "slave" or "servant," although it can then also mean "charioteer." It would be nice to know why there is this alternation, even noting that the former seems to be verbal, the latter nominal, in meaning.
, The Master said, 
, "One who studies the past to gain new knowledge," 
, "is on the path to becoming a master" [after Joanna C. Lee & Ken Smith, 2010].
There are different translations for wēn gù here. This looks like "review the past," but several translators expand it to "study old knowledge," which means that "old," gù, and "new," xīn, are taken to refer to the same noun, "knowledge," zhī. If that was supposed to be the sense of the passage, I would have put zhī at the beginning of the phrase rather than the end; and Confucius certainly would have no objection to studying the past, and not just reviewing "old knowledge," although he would do that too.
, The Master said, 
, "The gentleman is no tool."
The "superior man," , is no , which can mean "vessel, utensil, implement, instrument, tool," etc. In modern terms, especially Kantian terms, we could render this that the good person is good-in-himself, not good-for-something. The good person is not there just to serve some purpose. This is rather like the older British meaning of "gentleman," as a person who needs no regular trade or profession for a living. Since Confucius was advising rulers, this statement seems a bit contrary to the purpose Confucius himself wanted to serve. Nevertheless, it would fit in well with the response of Mencius to King Hui of Wei, that he had come to offer nothing of "profit," 
: "Why must you use that word 'profit'?"
, The Master said, 
, "Learning without thought leads to confusion," 
, "thought without learning is perilous."
This sounds like a famous statement by Immanuel Kant, "Thoughts without content are empty; intuitions without concepts are blind," Gedanken ohne Inhalt sind leer, Anschauungen ohne Begriffe sind blind
[A51/B75, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 1, Herausgaben von Wilhelm Weischedel, Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft, Erste Auflage, 1974, 1956, 1995, p.98; translation Norman Kemp Smith, Critique of Pure Reason, 1929, St. Martin's Press, 1965, p.93], although the point of the parallel statements is very different. Confucius is asserting that learning, 
, and reflection are both necessary for wisdom. Kant's point was a technical issue in his epistemology, although we are free to develop it to greater significance. Perhaps the epistemology is significant enough, since this reflects Kant's larger commitment that speculation is hopeless without an empirical foundation, while experience alone is unable to justify many of the concepts, like causality and substance, that are applied to it.
, The Master said, 
, "To know when you know," 
, "and when you do not know," 
, "that is wisdom."
Confucius sounds like Socrates here, although the sense is obscured by some translations. According to Arthur Waley it is, "When you know a thing, to recognize that you know it, and when you do not know a thing, to recognize that you do not know it. That is knowledge." D.C. Lau has it, "To say you know when you know, and so say you do not know when you do not, that is knowledge." I would simplify it, "To know when you know, and when you do not know; that is wisdom." The passage uses "know," 
, a lot, and 
, "wisdom"; but there are no characters here for "recognize" or "say." See the discussion of the "knowing" characters below.
, The Master said, 
, "I could describe the rites of the Hsia Dynasty," 
, "but Chi does not have sufficient evidence." 
, "I could describe the rites of the Yin (Shang) Dynasty," 
, "but Sung does not have sufficient evidence." 
, "It is because of the insufficiency of their records (and learned men?!)." 
, "With enough, I could adduce the evidence."
Confucius refers to the circumstance that the minor state of 
(Ch'i, also written Qy in Pinyin, but also found pronounced "Chi") was enfeoffed to the Ssu [Si] family of the legendary Hsia, 
, Dynasty, while the minor state of 
was enfeoffed to the Tzu [Zi] family of the Shang, 
, Dynasty -- which in whole or (latter) part can be called the 
Dynasty, as Confucius does here. He complains that the records of the earlier regimes have actually been lost in the places where they were supposed to be preserved. Of course, especially for the Hsia, the records may not have existed in the first place. I expect that the Shang did have records, but on the sort of perishable media that have not survived from the early phases of Chinese history. And it is not improbable that the fall of the Shang, under the assaults of semi-barbarous successors, resulted in the destruction of records.
A translation question here concerns the expression 
. This is translated "records and wise men" by Legge, "documents and... learned men" by Waley, "records and men of erudition" by D.C. Lau, and "documentation and... men of letters" by Ames & Rosemont. In his appendix, Legge glosses as used for "wise men." Under , Mathews' defines the binome as "records and wise men," echoing Legge, in the context of this line in the Analects [character #7129.62]. However, when we go to the entry for , we find "to offer up, to present" and "to show." That's it. How do we get "wise men" or "men of letters" or "men of erudition," etc., out of "offer, present, show"? This seems very odd, but none of the translators have seen a problem with it.
But when we go to Japanese, we see something different. In The Modern Reader's Japanese-English Character Dictionary by Andrew N. Nelson [Charles E. Tuttle, 1962, 1987], the binome , bunken, is defined as "literature; records, documents" [character #2064.13.8]. The character itself is defined as "present, dedicate, offer" [character #2901]. The Japanese reasoning seems to be that means literature that has been "presented," etc. by the learned, wise, erudite, etc. If this was the original meaning in Chinese and in Confucius, then it has become muddled over time. Otherwise, it is very hard to see how has ended up independently meaning "wise men," etc. After all, Confucius is talking about the records of the ancient dynasties preserved by their descendants. The "wise men" are tangential to this. If the Dynasties produced the records, they were presumably produce by the learned; but those men are long gone. And if the records existed in the present, it doesn't really matter whether there are "wise men" now for them. All we need are librarians or archivists. Confucius himself, in expounding the records, will be a wise man enough. So I think that the Japanese reading of is quite sufficient to the case, as meaning the records alone.
, The Master said, 
, "A benevolent person is content with benevolence," , "a wise person profits from benevolence."
This aphorism is something that is a little puzzling to even the most venerable translators. James Legge [1893] translates it, "The virtuous rest in virtue; the wise desire virtue." Arthur Waley [1938] sees it as, "The Good Man rests content with Goodness; he that is merely wise pursues Goodness in the belief that it pays to do so." D.C. Lau [1979] has a very prolix version, "The benevolent man is attracted to benevolence because he feels at home in it. The wise man is attracted to benevolence because he finds it to his advantage." Finally, Joanna C. Lee and Ken Smith [The Pocket Confucius, Museworks, Hong Kong, 2010] say, "A kind person is content with his kindness, a wise person uses it for further ends." Here we find rendered as "virtuous," "Good," "benevolent," and "kind." The last two are appropriate. The first two, especially Legge's, are not the right idea.
The character is translated "wise" by everyone -- Legge marks it with a circle diacritic, to indicate the anomalous accent, 
, which I have put in red. Mathews' Chinese Dictionary [Harvard, 1972] glosses as "used in the classics for 
, the next" [chih, character #932 and #933]. Lee and Smith remark that the character was subsequently replaced by the new character, , which has taken over the more elevated semantic range and is sometimes substituted in the text of Confucius [2010, p.16]. We see both characters as Chinese virtues. As often in Chinese, a change in tone can change the meaning. (4th tone) is the noun, "wisdom" or "knowledge," while (1st tone), is the verb, "to know." The character 
, also meaning "wise," is used in the Chinese word for "philosophy," 
, "wise learning" (tetsugaku in Japanese). I have not noticed this character for "wise" as part of the vocabulary of Confucius, although my familiarity with the Chinese text is limited.
The key word here, however, is the heavily loaded , "profit." The interest of the passage is that this looks like a positive use of the word, which seems extraordinary, if not unique, for Confucius, and quite contrary to later Confucians. The difficulty of believing this picture seems to motivate the translations of Legge and Waley. Legge avoids the problem by translating as "desire," which voids the dilemma posed by its actual meaning. Waley adopts the expedient of speaking of the "merely wise," supplying a concept that is not there in Chinese, to make it sound like the wise man is improperly motivated, as looking for something that "pays" is ignoble -- which otherwise does seem to often be the sentiment of Confucius. D.C. Lau says much the same thing but without the sour and disparaging form. Lee and Smith follow more succintly. It is hard to avoid the sense that the wise/knowledgeable person knows how to derive a benefit, , from benevolence, while the merely benevolent one is content with his virtue -- he is at peace, . But part of the problem here is just that it seems to be an unusual construction with these characters.
, The Master said, 
, "Wealth and rank are what every man desires," 
, "but if they can only be retained to the deteriment of the Way he professes," 
, "he must relinquish them" [Waley, 1938]. Or, "Riches and honours are what men desire. If it cannot be obtained in the proper way, they should not be held" [Legge, 1893]. Or, "Wealth and high station are what men desire but unless I got them in the right way I would not remain in them" [D.C. Lau].
The implication of this passage is that there is only something morally wrong with wealth (or profit, ) if it is obtained through violations of morality. Later Confucianism tended to regard profit as intrinsically immoral. Wealth through rank (
), however, earned through progress up the bureaucracy, was never regarded as improper. This all burdened China with a self-righteous but parasitic bureaucracy, which belittled and obstructed productive merchants and businesses. The ideals were fine, of peace and benevolence, but the results could be the horrors of foreign conquest (as with the Manchus) and of poverty and famine. China should not have been one of the poorest countries in the world in the 19th century, but it was.
The Master continued, 
, "Poverty and obscurity are what everyone hates," , "but if there is no right way to do so," 
, "they cannot be avoided." The preceding statement is put in terms of its opposites, to the same effect.
, "The superior man does not, even for the space of a single meal, act contrary to benevolence."
One thing Confucius appears to be unaware of is dilemmas. The superior man, despite his good will and determination, may find himself in circumstances where, in Machiavelli's words, "it is often necessary to act against mercy, against faith, against humanity, against frankness, against religion..." This will especially be a problem if the superior man is literally a , i.e. "son of a prince," and so likely to end up as a prince himself, faced with unpleasant political choices. Hence the saying, which is not for the squeamish, 
, "Kill one that many may live." A prince may need the time from that meal to kill the one, sometimes when there is not even a certainty that the many will be saved.
, The Master said, 
, "He who follows the Way in the morning can die content in the evening."
The reference to morning, 
, and evening, 
, here is reminiscent of two other such uses, one in the names of Japanese Destroyers -- such as the Asagiri, 
, "Morning Mist," or the Yûgiri, 
, "Evening Mist" -- the other in the Tendai practice of Asa Daimoku, Yû Nembutsu, 
, 
, "Morning Daimoku [the title of the Lotus Sutra], Evening Nembutsu [the Name of the Buddha Amitâbha]." The whole Confucian aphorism itself might be a motto for battle, as both of the named destroyers were sunk in the Solomon Islands.
, The Master said, 
, "The scholar whose mind is set on the Way," 
, "but is ashamed of poor clothing and food," 
, "is not worth engaging in discussion."
The character 
(ò in Wade-Giles) has been discussed elsewhere. Mathews' says that basically means "evil, wicked, wrong, foul," while the verbal variant 
is "dislike, hate, hateful." Lee & Smith use the first form, as does Legge, even while his appendix gives other variants. Thus, this passage uses what seems principally a moral term for what D.C. calls "poor" clothing and food. However, Mathews' gives examples to illustrate the "foul" side of the term, with "foul ulcers," "foul odours," "weeds," etc. [#4809:27/32/37/38 etc.]. Legge himself translates it as "bad" and Waley as "shabby" and "coarse" (for the clothing and food, respectively). "Foul" is altogether a stronger term, however; and it would leave the impression that Confucius thinks that even dirty and unpleasant clothing and food should be no more concern to the scholar than merely poor or shabby items.
, The Master said, 
, "The superior man in the world," 
, "does not set his mind either for anything," 
, "or against anything;" 
, "what is right he will follow."
The Confucian here is not supposed to be a partisan, but simply to pursue what is right, . To other people, this often might appear partisan, especially in the words, if not the sophistry, of those whose self-interest may thus suffer. The "world" here is all "under heaven," 
, which, of course, can alternatively mean China or the whole world -- just as Jambudvîpa, 
, can be, alternatively, India or the whole world.
With his diacritic circles, Legge flags two characters as anomalous. The basic meaning of 
is "to go to, reach," or, in terms of a bride gong to her husband's house, "to marry." But in this passage of Confucius we get 
, which means "to be bent on, to preside over." So the Superior Man is not "bent on" anything. And Mathews' cites this very saying of Confucius in illustration. Mathews' gives other variations, including 
, which means "to reprove, remonstrate" -- an extemely important term for the Confucian minister in government -- and the entry cites an arresting aphorism, 
, "It is not enough to remonstrate with the people." The striking thing about all of these is the substantial difference in pronunciation, while elsewhere we see variations in tone, or no difference at all.
The basic meaning of 
, in the 3rd tone, is "to compare." Here we get the variant, 
in the 4th tone, "to associate with, follow," etc. So the Superior Man follows the right.
, The Master said, 
, "The superior man thinks of virtue;" 
, "the mean man things of the land." 
, "The superior man thinks of the law; 
, "the mean man thinks of benefits."
The , "superior man," "gentleman," etc. is contrasted with the , "small person," "mean person," etc. It is not surprising that the former thinks of virtue, , while the latter thinks of the land, 
, or the "soil" (according to Waley), i.e. work, profit, or comfort. Legge actually says "comfort," which seems like a stretch. However, the superior man thinking of 
, which is "law" or "punishment," looks inconsistent with II:3, where we are told that ruling through will not turn out well. Thinking of virtue will do it, but what come next may require some rethinking. On the other hand, 
, which can mean "favor, benefit" -- with Waley saying "exemptions" and Lau "generous treatment" -- looks relevant to the evils of the Welfare State. Thus, the clamor for everyone's "benefits" drowns out the sober reality of vote-buying promises that exceed resources, and whose end game is all too evident in modern Greece or in States like Illinois with bloated public pension systems. Few seem to realize that pulling capital out of the economy to "spread the wealth," on the Marxist principle that capital it is unnecessary, does not merely mortgage the future, it forfeits it. Confucianism, which in practical terms became a cultural system of hard work and pruduence, was no more sensible of the existence of capital than was any other ancient philosophy -- hence the contempt of Confucians for trade, merchants, and money.
, The Master said, 
, "Working only for your own profit will incur much resentment."
This comment about , "profit," adds to the negative construction of it inherited by later Confucians. Of course, someone who does think only of themselves, in any way, will incur resentment. Here Legge has flagged the character 
(with his circle diacritic) as anomalous. The basic character, in the 4th tone, 
, means "to loosen, liberate, let go." But in the 3rd tone it means "to accord with, reach to, having regard to," as noted by Legge in his own footnote.
, The Master said, 
, "He is not concerned that he is not known; he seeks to be worthy of being known."
Someone like Confucius receives little recognition, at the time, for his efforts; and he must regard his work as unsuccessful. But if the result is genuinely worthy, then, in time, even after he is gone, recognition may come.
, The Master said, 
, "Ts'an! My way has one thread that runs right through it." , Master Tseng said, 
, "Yes." 
, When the Master had gone out, the disciples asked, saying, 
, "What did he mean?" , Master Tseng said, 
, "Our Master's way," 
, "is simply this: Conscientiousness and consideration."
A very important passage. According to James Legge, "This chapter is said to be the most profound in the Lun Yü." "One thread" (even a "string of cash") that runs through Confucius' teaching: 
(chung) and 
(shu). Zhong is often translated "loyalty," but this is more the Japanese meaning (chû, blind loyalty), which is examined in more detail below at XI:24. The Confucian meaning is "conscientiousness," i.e. trying to do one's duty and one's best. The meaning of we must gather from passages like XI:24; but for , as "consideration" or "reciprocity," regard for others, we will have what is practically a definition at XV:23.
Legge flags the character 
as anomalous, with his circle diacritic. In the 3rd tone it means "to answer promptly, or, as it is generally translated, "yes." Legge regards this as the secondary reading, but Mathews' Chinese Dictionary gives it first, followed by 
in the 2nd tone, which can mean "only."
An intriguing feature of this passage, which goes unremarked by the translators, as far as I can see, is the name that Confucius addresses at the head of the text. Legge and Waley read this 
, "Shen" (Legge actually has "Shan"), but D.C. Lau gives it as 
, "Ts'an." The basic character is , "to counsel; to consult; to take part in; to intervene." This might be someone's name. However, a secondary reading is , which, with some minor unlikely meanings, is mainly the character for the root ginseng. I would like to know why Legge and Waley think the ginseng reading is more appropriate than the "counsel" meaning. I've tangled with this character before, in the name of a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco, and this only adds to the curiosity of the whole business.
, The Master said, 
, "The superior man understands what is right," , "the mean man understands profit."
"Profit" we have seen. The "gentleman" or "superior man" only thinks about what is right, . "Profit," , also gets translated as "what is of advantage." This is what puts Confucius firmly in the deontological camp when it comes to systems of morality. Whether this is an inclusive or exclusive deontology is a key question for the construction of Confucian ethics.
, The Master said, 
, "The superior man wishes to be careful in his speech," 
, "and earnest in his conduct."
Universal virtues. But there are a number of questions about the characters here. Legge flags 
as anomalous, with his circle diacritic. The basic character, 
, means "to walk, to do, to act, to travel." In the 4th tone, as , it means "actions, conduct, behavior." This looks like the right idea here, where the conduct will be "active; clever; prompt; witty; smart; earnest; diligent." Legge says "earnest"; Waley and Lee & Smith say "prompt"; and Lau and Ames & Rosemont say "quick." However, for , in the transcription of Lee & Smith, they use the 2nd tone, which doesn't look quite right, although "to act" is part of the meaning. Ames & Rosemont say "to act"; so they are deliberately favoring the verbal form, although Lee & Smith just as deliberately use a noun, "deed."
At least as intriguing is the character 
. Here the basic Mathews' Chinese Dictionary [character #4609] entry is for 
, "to raise the voice; to blurt out." The dictionary then gives [no4 in Wade-Giles] as meaning "to speak cautiously." Legge does not flag the character because is the only entry he has in his appendix, glossed as "slow in speaking." But in the transcription of Lee & Smith, we get , which is translated "slow." So it is not clear that Lee & Smith have identified the correct form of the character. The one they use has a wholly inappropriate meaning -- it seems unlikely that the superior man will be raising his voice or blurting out anything. Curiously, the DeFrancis ABC dictionary doesn't seem to independently list either character.
, Tzu-yu said, 
, "In serving a prince, frequent remonstrances," 
, "lead to disgrace." 
, "Reproof of friends," 
, "makes them distant."
Much of the interest of this passage comes down to one character, 
, which Legge has flagged as anomalous with his circle diacritic. The basic character, 
, means "to count, calculate, estimate, enumerate," or "to scold, reprimand." In the 4th tone, 
means "fate" or "several." After that much variation, , with a difference in pronunciation, means "frequently." Now, if 
were read in the first meaning, it would say, "Remonstration, in the service of a prince..." leads to disgrace. This does not sound like a Confucian sentiment. Remonstration is required if the prince does wrong. On the other hand, one might think that would mean, "Frequent service to a prince..." leads to disgrace. But we do not otherwise find Confucians recommend the avoidance of service to princes. So, oddly enough, Legge reads as meaning, "frequent remonstrances," as though we were looking at , one after the other. Waley says, "repeated scolding." Back to one word, D.C. Lau says, "to be importunate," and Ames & Rosemont "unrelenting." It is not clear how Lau or Ames & Rosemont would get those particular meanings. How we get any sensible meaning is the problem. Like some visual illusions, in which our perception shifts back and forth between different perceptions of the same image, it is as though our understanding should shift back and forth between and to get the whole meaning. Like a pun. I haven't otherwise encountered such a thing elsewhere in the Analects.
Scolding friends can also have unwanted consequences. Just as we will see "brothers" elsewhere as combining two characters, for elder and younger brohters, here we have two characters, , for older and younger friends, to mean "friends" in general.
, Tzu-kung said, 
, "What I do not want others to do to me," 
, "I have no desire to do to others." , The Master said, 
, "Oh Szu!" 
, "You have not quite reached that point."
Tzu-kung repeats the basic principle of Confucian morality, but Confucius doesn't think he has achieved quite that level of moral accomplishment yet. One wonders how affectionately or humorously this may have beeeen meant. What is striking about the passage, however, is the language that Tzu-kung uses. Tsu-kung says in 16 characters what Confucius himself says to him at XV:23 and identically to Chung-kung at XII:2 in only eight: 
, "What you do not want yourself," 
, "Don't do to others." Tzu-kung has expanded his expression to double the size of the other. Part of what he does is place himself in both phrases and introduce "others" in the first, where otherwise it does not figure. So where Confucius had put it in terms of what one does not want, Kung-tzu actually says what he doesn't want others doing to him. The addition of a pronoun, conjunction, and a repetition of "desire" in the second phrase account for the difference in length. Only Legge among the translators has some discussion about the variation in expression, here and elsewhere. Another curiosity of the passage is the name Confucius uses for Tzu-kung. This is 
, which Legge writes as Ts'ze, although otherwise it is Tz'u in Wade-Giles. This is the basic dictionary entry for the character in Mathews' [#6988]. However, Mathews' then says that it "also read szu4," or 
; and that is what is used by Waley and D.C. Lau, written Ssu by both (alternatively szu in Wade-Giles). But neither one says anything about why this reading is preferred over the other.
, The Master said, 
, "Where the (natural) disposition is in excess of (literary) accomplishments, we have rusticity; 
, "Where the (literary) accomplishments are in excess of the (natural) dispostion, we have a chronicler." 
, "Accomplishments and disposition together are refined," 
, "And this results in the superior man."
We have a nice variety among the translators of interpreting key characters. Thus, 
means "solid qualities" to Legge, "natural substance" to Waley, "native substance" to Lau, and "basic disposition" to Ames & Rosemont. Mathews' Chinese Dictionary says "disposition," with a secondary meaning of "matter; substance; elements," for which a version of this phrase in Confucius is cited [character #1009]. Used alone, is thus universally taken to mean natural disposition, i.e. one's character or habits before education.
In turn, 
, which Mathews' defines as "literature; literary accomplishments; polite studies; elegant; refined" [character #7129] is translated "accomplishments" by Legge, "ornamentation" by Waley, "acquired refinement" by Lau, and "refinement" by Ames & Rosemont. We therefore can take it mean to mean the study of literature and, as Mathews' says, "polite studies," which contrasts with untutored "natural disposition."
Too little of study and we get 
, which Mathews' defines as "wild; uncultivated; wilderness; rustic; savage" [character #7314] Here Legge says "rusticity," Waley "boorishness of the rustic," Lau "churlishness," and Ames & Rosemont "boorish." "Savage" might be too much in its English meaning.
The opposite is a little less clear. Too much study and we get 
, which is an important word in Chinese, said by Mathews' to mean "history; chronicles; annals; a historian" [character #5769]. The problem is that Chinese historiography proper had not yet started in the time of Confucius -- that would come with the 
, "Historical Records," of Szu-ma Ch'ien [Sima Qian] during the Former Han Dynasty. Yet quite early we also had the Classics of the 
, "Book of History," and 
, "Spring and Autumn Annals," which also largely or wholly post-date Confucius. So we really can't expect Confucius to mean here what we would expect from the later tradition. From other references, we know that Confucius was acutely aware of historical records and their importance, but we must seriously ask what he would have meant by . Legges says "manners of a clerk" (acknowledging the later meaning of "an historian"), Waley "pedantry of the scribe," Lau "pedantry," and Ames & Rosemont "officious scribe." I have chosen "chronicler," which covers the job of compling chronicles, annals, or historical records, but is something that could indeed be performed by a "scribe" or "clerk," jobs for which Confucius need not have had too much respect, although literacy would have been a requirement. But then perhaps that is his point. Yet we also might think that the difference between a clerk and a proper scholar in the understanding of Confucius would be, not just natural qualities, or the degree of "polite studies," but also a certain kind of further education -- such as is provided by Confucius himself. So this may not be the best expression of the view of education in Confucius, where the proper is not necessarily just a matter of degree.
Finally we get the interesting character 
, which Mathews' defines as "ornamental, refined" [character #5257], with but a single example cited, which is this very line, , in the Analects, "the ornamental and the fundamental combined." But that rendering seems to be backwards, since "ornamental" looks to be predicated on "accomplishments" and "disposition." Even more, the character is reduplicated, as , which Mathews' does not define at all. Despite the impression that this is then an obscure expresson, we find it by turning to DeFrancis in the ABC Chinese-English Comprehensive Dictionary, where binbin is independently defined as "refined, gentle, and elegant" [p.51]. If this implies modern usage, it is surprising that Mathews' otherwise has nothing about it. In his appendix, Legge defines the binome as "equally blended," which doesn't seem right at all -- although the other translators have something similar, with Waley saying "duly blended," Lau "well-balanced admixture," and Ames & Rosemont "in appropriate balance." How they all can get such things out of is mysterious. My take is that the "refined" is the combination of and , which is then characteristic of , the superior man.
, the Master said, 
, "The wise delight in water, the kind in mountains," 
, "the wise are active, the kind tranquil"; 
, "the wise are happy, the kind long lived."
More comparisons of the "wise," , with the "kind," , person, as at IV:2. This time the comparisons seem more whimsical, and without any sense of why such comparisons would be made. Nor is there a sense that one is superior to the other. But there is a Taoist vibe here, since water, 
, and mountains, 
, easily reflect a Yin and Yang contrast, respectively, although it is not clear, of course, why knowedge should go with the Yin water and benevolence with the Yang mountain. "Longevity," 
, is the name of a very popular Chinese god, which itself has Taoist overtones, although now the Yin association of such a being (one of the Taoist Immortals) seems to be switched for the Yang associaton of the mountain. So what we get here is not easily systematized.
, Tzu-Kung said, 
, "Suppose the case of a man extensively conferring benefits on the people," 
, "and able to assist all," 
, "what would you say of him? might he be called perfectly benevolent?" , The Master said, 
, "Why speak only of benevolence in connection with him?" 
, "Must he not have the qualities of a Sage?" 
, "Even Yao and Shun found it difficult to accomplish as much." 
, "Now the benevolent man, wishing to establish himself, also establishes others," 
, "wishing to succeed himself, also promotes others." 
, "To be able to judge by what is near," 
, "this may be called the method of benevolence."
This is an important passage. Legge says, "There are no higher sayings in the Analects than we have here." We might say that the whole essence of Confucian ethics, of the balance between self and others, is here expressed in 
, "Wishing to establish himself, also establishes others." Thus, as in the principle not to do to others what you do not want yourself, one judges for others in terms of what is acceptable to oneself. This is not a flawness principle, since one must have a healthy idea about one's own desires. The masochist to himself would be justified in being a sadist to others. Morality instead requires respect for others regardless of whether their preferences are similar to one's own. Nevertheless, Confucius properly understands, as many moralists do not, that morality requires a limitation, but not a denial, of self-interest. So, as in the Golden Rule, this is what Confucius relies on, and the principle is expressed in , "to be able to judge by what is near." This is variously translated. D.C. Lau says, "The ability to take an analogy what is near at hand"; and Waley says, "the ability to take one's own feelings as a guide." The meaning seems plain enough, but Legge complains, "It is wished that the idea intended by had been more clearly expressed." He translates it, with additions, "To be able to judge of others by what is nigh in ourselves."
A noteworthy character here is 
(事, shì), "affair, matter, undertaking, business." This looks like the equivalent of Greek πρᾶγμα, pragma (plural πράγματα, pragmata), which is used extensively by Socrates in the Apology for what he does in his own investigations. We also see Socrates supply it as the missing noun for a series of adjectives in his examination of the accuser Meletus. The character can also be used as a verb, meaning "to serve," as we see at XI:24 and also in the Tao Te Ching. This service can be quite general, with 
, "serve a prince," , "serve Heaven," 
, "serve one's parents," 
, "serve, attend, wait on," etc.
On the other hand, the Greek verb corresponding to πρᾶγμα, which is πράσσειν, means "to accomplish, achieve, be successful, to practice," etc. So the correspondence of and πρᾶγμα, does not extend to their verbal reflexes -- although even those are related in the sense that the Greek verb involves, mostly, working for oneself, while the Chinese as for others.
The metaphysical use of in Buddhism to mean "phenomena" is mentioned here. See in Cantonese and other languages here.
It is also interesting to see Confucius refer to a benevolent ruler as a possible "Sage," since the term 
("sacred person") can mean Confucius himself.
Legge flags three characters as having anomalous accents and meanings. He thinks that 
should be in the 4th tone, as 
(using his circle diacritic, which I have put in red). In the 4th tone, he says it means "to confer on," although "There is not much appreciable difference between the character in this tone and the last [i.e. the 1st tone]." He gives the definition in the first tone as "to give, to use." However, this may be wrong. Mathews' Chinese Dictionary gives the meaning of the 1st tone as "to bestow, to grant," as well as "to act, to do," while the 4th tone is only "to extend to" with a spatial connotation. So, pace Legge, I have left the character in the 1st tone. Less problematic is 
in the 2nd tone, which is little more than a throat-clearing "initial particle" ("Now"). In the 1st tone, however, 
is "a sage, distinguished person," which we find in the full name and title of Confucius, 
, from which our Latin version of his name is actually derived. Legge also flags 
, which I discuss below.
, The Master said, 
, "From the man bringing his bundle of dried flesh upwards, 
, "I have never refused instruction to any one."
While Socrates denied ever receiving payment, and Protagoras had a fee of 100 minas, but accepted poorer students, the traditional basic payment to a Chinese teacher was some "dried flesh," 
, i.e. jerky. Modern students could obtain the tuition in the rack by the supermarket checkout counter, although modern taste seems to favor beef, while the Chinese might have favored pork. It is not clear what Confucius would have expected from well-to-do students.
, The Master said, 
, "I do not instruct one who is not eager," 
, "nor help out anyone who does not speak." 
, "When I have presented one corner," 
, "and he cannot return the other three," 
, "I do not repeat myself."
A nice example of Confucius using a geometrical metaphor, like the term , "carpenter's square," in chapter II:4. In this case Confucius presents one 
, "corner," and the student should return with the other three. In these phrases, as in the two that begin the passage, translators step in to supply a great deal of understood context. Thus, Confucius begins with , which is literally "No eager, no explain." He then continues with , "No speak, no help," where fa literally means "to manifest," "send forth," or "issue," as in issuing supplies. The structure of these might remind us of the rule of 19th century Chinese laundries, "no tickee, no shirtee." But translators are not comfortable with such succinctness. Legge says, "I do not open up the truth to one who is not eager to get knowledge, nor help out any one who is not anxious to explain himself." Waley says, "Only one who bursts with eagerness do I instruct; only one who bubblies with excitement, do I enlighten." With various extra-texual bursting and bubbling, and "excitement" for simple speech, Waley seems to wander rather far from the sense of the passage. D.C. Lau says, "I never enlighten anyone who has not been driven to distraction by trying to understand a difficulty or who has not got into a frenzy trying to put his ideas into words." Lau seems infected with the prolixity of Waley, supplying "distraction," "difficulty," "frenzy," and other extra-textual items. When Confucius says something simply, it may not be good English to be as simple as he is, but I do think a translator should not obscure the simplicity with his own ideas of how elaborate Confucius should have been, or really meant but didn't say.
When it comes to the corners, we get similar elaboration in the translations. For , literally "raise/bring forth one corner," Legge says, "When I have presented one corner of a subject to anyone..."; Waley says, "If I hold up one corner..."; and Lau says, "When I have pointed out one corner of a square to anyone..." Here Waley is the most modest, and Lau clarifies that the corner is of a "square," while Legge infers that the "square" is a metaphor for part of a "subject" of instruction. This is reasonable. For the phrase , literally, "not return with three corners," Legge says, "and he cannot from it learn the other three..."; Waley, "and a man cannot come back to me with the other three..."; and Lau, "and he does not come back with the other three..." Here only Legge has the real semantic addition with the sense of "learn," where this might not even be the right idea. For what we want is for the student to figure out for himself the rest of the lesson. This is indeed learning, but it is of a special sort, namely independent discovery -- something that we might not think that Chinese civilization, or Confucius himself, otherwise encouraged. Finally, where Confucius says , literally "consequently not repeat," Legge says, "I do not repeat my lesson"; Waley, "I do not continue the lesson"; and Lau, "I will not point it out to him a second time." The substantive concept there is "repeat," so "continue" and "point it out" have shifted things a bit, while Waley's "lesson" supplies something otherwise understood.
Legge marks one character here as anomalous, with a circle diacritic (which I have put in red) on 
. However, there is no difference in pronunciation or tone here as with the basic character, and Legge only does this to mark a different meaning of the same word, namely "again" rather than "to make good." Both of these belong to the single entry definition in Mathews' Chinese Dictionary, namely "to return; to repeat; to reply; again; repeatedly; altenative; to make good" [character #1992]. Mathews' makes it look like "to make good" is the anomalous meaning, the opposite of the impression we get from Legge.
, The Master said, 
, "If wealth were a permissible pursuit," 
, "even as a gentleman who holds a whip," 
, "I would do so." 
, "If it is not," 
, "I shall follow what I love."
The translators have very different ideas at a couple of points here. Legge says, "If the search for riches is sure to be successful..." Waley says, "If any means of escaping poverty presented itself, that did not involve doing wrong..." D.C. Lau says, "If wealth were a permissible pursuit..." And Ames & Rosemont say, "If wealth were an acceptable goal..." The problem here is the phrase 
, which basically looks like it means "to be able to seek." Well, the question is about seeking wealth, 
, so it all comes down to the meaning of , which Mathews' Chinese Dictionary says is, "may, can, might, able" [character #3381]. The range of meaning here is from simple ability, to what one "may" do, i.e. what is permissible, allowable, or worthy. Thus, when the (old fashioned) grammar school teacher corrected us about the difference in the use of "can" and "may," actually includes both. The DeFrancis ABC Chinese-English Comprehensive Dictionary covers the same ground, with "can, may; need; be worth, be worthy of; approve" [p.504]. So all we can do is pick the meaning most suitable for the context. As it happens, mere ability does not seem to fit with with the phrase , which posits the negation of . Well, certainly Confucius would hot pursue wealth if he were not able to, so as a moral issue this seems moot. But if it is just not allowable, then morally he will choose to do something else, which is the sense of the whole passage. In this, Legge seems to have missed the point, and the use of the word "successful" doesn't fit the sentence at all. It looks like Waley hedges his bets, with one phrase about "presented itself" and another about "not involve doing wrong." I think that the simplicity of Lau and Ames & Rosemont recommends itself.
Less central to the meaning of the passage is what Confucius would do if pursuing wealth were acceptable. He considers 
, "holding a whip." Everyone is all over the map on this. Under [character #996], Mathews' cites the phrase to mean being a "driver" or a "coachdriver," a humble position. Under [character #5227], we get the same phrase glossed as, "to act as a groom -- reckoned low by Confucius." DeFrancis has an entry for zhíbian itself, as "hold a whip; be a teacher; coachman; (I am) your servant" [p.1264]. In this, Confucius of course will be a teacher, which he loves, rather than "hold a whip."
Legge simply uses "groom." Waley apparently notes the use of the phrase with 
, and actually translates it as "the gentleman who holds the whip," glossing it as "the most menial. 'Gentleman,' shih, in such contexts is used with a slightly ironical intention..." D.C. Lau has gotten the idea that here we have "a guard holding a whip outside the market place," followed by Ames & Rosemont doing a mix and match with, "serve as a groom holding a whip in the marketplace." Where the marketplace comes form here, I have no idea -- none of them have an annotation about it. Only Waley sees any special sense to the use of , which would indeed seem to signify a social class far above humble drivers, grooms, or guards.
Legge flags (with his circle diacritic) the character 
as anomalous, and we are told that in the 3rd tone it means "to love, like, be fond of." However, this seems to be wrong. In Mathews', the basic character, 
, is in the 3rd tone; and it means, "good, excellent; well; superior; right" [character #2062]. In the 4th tone, means, "to love; be fond of; be addicted to" -- which is the sense we want in this passage. The tones are confirmed by DeFrancis [p.353]. So, unless the tones have traded off since 1893, Legge got a little confused. I have discussed the various forms of the characters for "good" elsewhere.
, The Master said, 
, "Eating coarse rice, drinking water," 
, "and a bended arm for a pillow," 
, "happiness is amidst these things." 
, "Wealth and rank acquired by unrighteousness," 
, "are to me as a floating cloud."
One wonders if, in the course of his travels, Confucius really was reduced to rice and water and sleeping, apparently on the ground, with his head on his arm. Certainly, there weren't a lot of Holiday Inns, but then there were inns, the posting stations, and people willing to take in travelers, which might be unavoidable for anyone living by a road. We don't get a lot of details about this, but it is also true that the times were unsettled and, without the country unified, there actually might not have been any posting stations as would exist later.
We hear about "wealth and rank," 
, elsewhere, for instance at IV:5, memorably to the same effect as here, but without the clear reference to , "rigtheousness." So we already know that they should not, in effect, be sought through 
, "unrigheousness." We also get a reference at XII:5, with the somewhat different sense that they may be denied by , the dispensation of Heaven. In the Apology, we find also Socrates speaking of inappropriate concern for things that sounds like "wealth and rank," namely χρήματα, "wealth," δόξα, "reputation," and τιμή, "honor."
The vividness of this passage is enhanced by the final image, of the 
, "floating cloud." This an evocation rich with associations, in part probably because of this saying. Thus, the literal meaning of , "to float, to drift," extends to implications that are easily understood in English -- starting with the aimless and imprudent. Mathews' then reserves a whole section for the meanings of as "volatile, fleeting, insubstantial, giddy, frivolous, dissolute." The applications of this range from an overall evaluation of life as fleeting and empty -- with 
, "cloud travel," itself meaning "aimless wandering, roaming" (what Confucius did?) -- to the use in Japanese for prostitution and the pleasure quarters of cities -- so that 
, ukareme, "floating woman," is actually a prostitute (and 
"clouds and rain," sexual intercourse). One response, indeed, to a sense of the emptiness of life is hedonism. But the emptiness of life is a basic teaching of Buddhism -- 
, "cloud travel monk," could even mean a Buddhist mendicant monk -- and it had difficulty finding root in China. Confucians simply never countenanced it. It is in Japan, curiously, with a stronger Buddhist tradition, that the aesthetics of both violence and pleasure gained more elite traction, in great measure because of the very sense of their ephemeral nature.
The combination even looks like it could be the name of a Japanese destoyer, many of which have names based on kinds of clouds, 
. It is not used, which is a matter of some curiosity. First, one wonders how it would be pronounced. Such names always use the Japanese kun reading. Thus, it could possibly be rendered Ukikumo -- but then in pronunciation the "i" would drop out (giving Ukkumo), and that seems to be something avoided for these names. So we might try Ukigumo, where the voiced "k" preserves the vowel and the syllable. As it happens, ukigumo actually is a word in Japanese, glossed as meaning, "a cloud drift, a floating [drifting] cloud" or "the transience of human life" [Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, Kenkyusha, Tokyo, 1974, p.1913]. Now, "drifting cloud" sounds exactly like the sort of thing we find in the destroyer names; but "the transience of human life" may be exactly what precludes this. While, for the old Japanese ethos, battle certainly embodies the transience of life, this may be rather inauspicious when applied as the name of a warship. And the associations of "floating" with prostitution may really help put it off the table.
With his circle diacritic, James Legge flags no less than four characters here as anomalous. First, 
, in the 4th tone, means "cooked rice, food, provisions"; but here Legge uses 
, in the 3rd tone, which means "to eat" [Mathew's character #1787]. So Confucius eats his coarse rice. Next, 
means "food; to eat, to drink" [Mathews' #5810, which is the radical found in the previous character]. However, Legge (probably following Chinese commentators) uses 
, which will mean "food, rice." So this is the rice that Confucius eats. However, Legge may make a mistake here, since he glosses the pronunciation of this as tsze, while in Mathews' we see szu, corresponding to si in Pinyin, which is what we find in the DeFrancis dictionary.
Next, Legge flags 
, "pillow, to use as a pillow" [Mathews' #308]. However, this is the sole entry in Mathews'; and Legge himself only gives one entry for it, which raises the question why he has flagged it at all. Perhaps he just thinks it should be distinguished as having the verbal rather than the nominal meaning. But there is no difference in pronunciation.
Finally, Legge lists 
with the primary meaning of "music" and then the secondary , which is used here in Confucius, as "pleasure, joy; to rejoice in, feel joy." This is the opposite of Mathews', where comes first as, "happy, pleased; to laugh; joy" [#4129, under "LO," p.592], with as "music" a secondary meaning. Of course, it makes no difference which one is put first in a dictionary. It would only be frequency of use, or the initial meaning in Chinese lexicons, that would provide a principle for priority.
, the Master said, 
, "I was not born with knowledge but," 
, "loving antiquity," 
, "I am quick to seek it."
We are reminded that Confucius thinks of all knowledge as having previously been recorded. All we need to do is study it. This is not necessarily about the lessons of history, as those might be understood by David Hume or Edmund Burke, except in so far as these lessons have already been understood in the past.
, "the Master never talked of the uncanny [
], force [
], disorders [
], or gods [
, Japanese kami]."
The character , Japanese ran, is otherwise familiar as the name Akira Kurosawa gave to his movie version of King Lear. Socrates, who talked about the gods all the time, was executed for supposedly not believing in them. But Confucius, who never, as we are told here, talked about the gods, eventually became a god. A temple of Confucius always existed in traditional Chinese cities, patronized by students, especially at exam time.
This distance that Confucius kept from the gods, however, resulted in what seems like the reduced status of the gods in Chinese civilization. They are unavoidable, but they seem to exist at a popular level, without a presence in high culture or literature; and Chinese governments always treated them as kinds of Chinese subjects, who might be promoted, demoted, or banned depending on the judgment of the government about both their popularity and their worth -- worth both moral and thaumaturgical. Most people otherwise unfamiliar with China may not be able to name a single Chinese god, while many gods of India, for instance, are well known in the West. In Japan, we get a mixture of Chinese, Buddhist, and local gods -- with interesting twists such as uniting as one god, Fukurokuju, what are still three popular gods in China: 
, 
, and . Similarly, Confucianism becomes far too rationalistic to countenance the uncanny, ; but Taoism had no such scruple, and ghost stories (etc.) live in a vivid Chinese tradition.
The character means "strength, force, power." If Confucius did not talk about this, then he is a poor candidate for popularity in modern thought, which, through Nietzsche and Marx, is all about power. While J.K. Rowling has Lord Voldemort, a fictional character in the Harry Potter books, say, "There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it," there is nothing trivial or funny aboutt his principle, which is an unquestioned and indisputable postulate and dogma of all modern "progressive" nihilism. The project of Communist China to use Confucius for their own purposes must redact everything in Confucianism that doesn't serve dictatorship and Marxism. Here we have a prime case.
, When the Master was very ill, 
, Tzu-lu asked leave to offer a prayer. , The Master said, 
, "Is there such a thing?" 
, Tzu-lu answered saying, 
, "There is. One of the Eulogies says," 
, 'Prayer has been made for you to the spirits above and below'." , The Master said, 
, "My prayer began long ago."
A key passage for understanding the attitude of Confucius, and later Confucians, for religion, about which many questions arise. Confucius, dangerously ill, declines the offer of his student Tzu-lu to pray for him. This seems remarkable. He explains this by saying, , "My prayer began long ago," which implies that what he has been doing is already prayer. This is the key to the business. What he has been doing, according to II:4 is maintaining , the "square," i.e. the "norm." He is on the square. We might even say he is square. What benefit does he expect to derive from this? All of them -- as Socrates says, ἰδία καὶ δημοσία., ídia kaì dêmósia, "private and public" [Apology 30b]. How does that work? Does Confucius, or the State, benefit simply in a prudential way, or does this align him with the forces of the universe, i.e. the Mandate of Heaven, , which draws down divine help? This is a critical difference.
If Confucius is simply an atheist and a secularist before his time, then his behavior is just good practical sense. But if the is a divine force, then what he does is more than practical. It is, as he says here, already the equivalent of prayer. This enables us to reconcile what otherwise seems paradoxical. Confucius rejects prayer for his own health yet elsewhere powerfully endorses the rites [XII:1.2]. If Confucius were a modern atheist, this would incomprehensible. "Mere" ritual is the most despised and mocked part of any religion, yet in Confucianism we discover that ritual is more important than prayer, more important than belief in the gods, and even more important than a belief in the afterlife. This will make some sense if we see ritual, and all of morality, as part of the forces of Nature. , "Heaven," is impersonal, but it nevertheless governs the world, in just the way that we might see gravity doing the same. It is just that there is no difference between physical forces and moral forces in this reckoning -- something that we also see in the Buddhist doctrine of karma as causality. The modern Nihilist will not entertain for a moment the existence of karmic causality. Confucius does not have such a theory in explicit form, but we can only make sense of his attitude with something of the sort.
Legge quotes a Chinese commentator, Chu Hsi, saying, "Prayer is the expression of repentance and promise of amendment, to supplicate the help of the spirits. If there be not those things, then there is no need for praying." Thus, Confucius rejects prayer because he has nothing of which to repent. Legge is dubious about this, and he is right if Confucius means it when he says he has already been praying. Chu Hsi would need to explain how Confucius has already been "repenting" when the suggested interpretation is that repentance is unnecessary. Instead, I think we should consider prayer as a pure supplication to the gods for help. But Confucius does not rely on the gods, as we know already, and we must consider from what direction he believes divine help to come. That's easy. It's , and you have the help of Heaven by obeying and following the . This is what he has been doing.
Uncertainties about the interpreation spill over into the translation. The character 
, according to Mathews' Chinese Dictionary and Legge's vocabulary, simply means "to pray; prayer"; and this is how Legge and D.C. Lau translate it in the passage. However, Waley translates it as "the Rite of Expiation," so that the passage ends with Confucius saying, "My expiation began long ago!" Waley must take it this way because of explanations like that of Chu Hsi. But it is not what the character means; and, as I have suggested, it is not the best intrepretation of what is going on here. There is no expiation involved.
Another curiosity is where Tzu-lu gets his saying, from the 
. This means "eulogy," but then Waley translates it as the "Dirges." D.C. Lau avoids even translating a name for the source. Legge says the "Eulogies," and cites another translation of them as "obituaries," of which examples exist; but he admits "Tsze-lû must have been referring to some well-known collection of such compositions," which means it is not well know, or known at all, to us. Something has been lost.
Finally, we have the curiosity of how Confucius refers to himself in the last line. The praying for a long time belongs to 
. This can mean a "hillock" or even a "grave," but Legge says it can also be "The name of Confucius. Used by himself." Mathews' expands on this a bit, saying, "read mou [from a character used when a name is tabooed]...out of respect for Confucius, as it was a part of his personal name" [character #1213]. It is not clear to me whether the character is then read mou when it is used for Confucius or when it isn't -- probably the latter. I can find nothing about it in the DeFrancis ABC dictionary. Legge says nothing about mou, and Waley and Lau say nothing about the character.
, Tseng Tzu says (about Yen Hui), 
, "Gifted with ability, and yet putting questions to those who were not so."
Neng can mean "power, ability, talent." So the idea here is that one may have talent or ability but nevertheless asks advice from those without it. The idea certainly involves humility, and perhaps the thought that "out of the mouth of babes" may come good advice.
, The Master seldom spoke about, 
, profit, fate, and benevolence.
James Legge expresses some perplexity here, since Confucius talks about profit, , and benevolence, , quite a bit, and fate, , not infrequently. Waley also tries to make some sense of it, and wrongly says that Confucius "refused to define" benevolence, despite his doing so at XII:22. Apparently, even Chinese commentators have attempted explanations in vain. We are left with a bit of a mystery about what this is supposed to mean. We hear about Confucius not talking about others things, as at VII:20, in terms that sound a lot more like his actual discourse.
, The Master was free of four things: 
, He had no opinions, 
, was never certain, 
, was never obstinate, 
, and was never self-absorbed.
The challenge of the translation here is mainly to take one character and expand it into a sentence that seems to fit the case. Thus, the first of the "four things" is , where "no" is followed by , which in Mathew's Chinese Dictionary simply means "an idea, opinion, sentiment, thought; meaning; wish, will, purpose" [character #2960]. So Confucius had no purpose? Probably not. Legge's translation is "no foregone conclusions"; Waley's is "took nothing for granted"; Lau's is "refused to entertain conjectures"; and Ames & Rosemont say "did not speculate." That's a lot, and a lot of variation, to get out of one character. Perhaps what we are looking at is a distinction like that used by Plato between opinion, δόξα, and knowledge, ἐπιστήμη. Thus, Confucius would state knowledge, but not mere opinion, which might be the result of a "foregone conclusion," something "taken for granted," a "conjecture," or "speculation." Otherwise, the translators, or the Chinese commentators, have taken some liberties.
Next comes , which Mathews' says is "certainly, must, will necessarily" [#5109]. So Legge says, "no arbitrary predetermination"; Waley, "never over-positive"; Lau, "insist on certainty"; and Ames & Rosemont, "did not claim or demand certainty." Now, "certainty" looks well motivated, but something like "claim or demand," or even "insist," may be reading too much into it.
Mathews' says that the character means "firm, strong, established; assuredly, decidedly; originally, obstinately; chronic" [#3450]. So "obstinate" is in there; and we probably don't want to say that Confucius was not firm, strong, or decided.
Finally, is just the pronoun "I," which can also be possessive [character #4778]. This motivates almost everyone into using some variation of "ego," except Ames & Rosemont, who are the ones who say "self-absorbed." But in ordinary language we actually can say "ego" to mean someone's self-absorption.
, the Master said, 
, "The wise are not confused," 
, "the benevolent not worried," 
, "the brave not afraid."
Comparisons again of the "wise," , with the "kind," , person, as at IV:2 and VI:21/23. Now we get the addition of the "brave," 
, person. This does not seem to have the whimsy of the comparisons in Book VI, and without Taoist overtones. Indeed, that the brave are not afraid would seem no more than a definition of bravery. That the wise would not be confused does seem to follow from their knowledge and understanding. That the benevolent are not worried perhaps is due to the confidence that may attend this virtue, although this could use a little explaining. It is curious that we get so many comparisons of knowledge/wisdom with kindness/benevolence in the Analects. While knowledge is regarded as a Chinese virtue, we might think of it more as a power acquired through the virtues of study and diligence, which Confucius is certainly promoting.
, Chi Lu asked how one should serve ghosts and spirits. , The Master said, 
, "You are not able to serve men," 
, how can you serve ghosts?" 
, Chi Lu ventured to ask about death. 
, The Master said, 
, "Until you know about life," 
, "how are you to know about death?"
This is a very important passage for our understanding Chinese religious beliefs. Confucius essentially says that we should not worry about ghosts, 
, and spirits, ; and he deflects any answer about the nature of death. Later Confucians took this to mean that ghosts and spirits simply didn't exist, and that there was no afterlife, which not only was quite different from popular beliefs but also led to the rebuke of a Confucian scholar by the 
Hung-wu Emperor (at right), the Founding Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, which I have discussed separately in relation to Chinese ideas about the soul.
A question about the translation here concerns the use of the character 
. This can mean "death," "to die," or "dead." It is also why the number four, 
, is considered unlucky, since the pronunciation is similar to "death" -- Chinese buildings may be missing a 4th floor the way Western buildings may be missing a 13th. But our problem here is whether means "death" or "the dead." Legge and D.C. Lau say "death." Waley says "the dead." I think that "death" is better, since Confucius has already talked about "the dead" in terms of ghosts and spirits, which Legge notes. So Chi Lu asks about the dead first, then death itself.
The answers that Confucius gives, to serve the living first, definitely sets the tone for the elevated forms of Chiense religion. This is a little surprising considering the importance of ancestors in Confucianism as a religion, and in light of the instructions from Confucius himself about rites for the dead. Indeed, we cannot overlook that point. Confucians do serve the dead through the rites, . We see emphasis on this, in terms of burial and sacrifice, at I:9 and II:5 In general, we get the most forceful affirmation of the rites at XII:1.2. Thus, it is hard to escape the idea that the rites themselves are part of the governance of the living, regardless of whatever benefit they involve for the dead. Indeed, as at II:3, advice about government often involves the rites, which encompass good manners and propriety as well as religious ritual. Indeed, this should remind us that ancient religion begins with ritual and initially contains little or nothing in the way of confessions of belief, dogma, or theology.
The Confucian attitude explains the curious practices of traditional Chinese government in religion. Chinese gods, , about whom we hear separately that Confucius did not speak [VII:20], are treated by the government more as subjects than as supernatural beings. And the word can signify gods, spirits, or even souls (which seems to be the case in this passage of the Analects). Thus, we seem to be missing some differentiation, which is already present in Greek, where Socrates says that "spirits," δαίμονες, are "either gods [θεοί] or the children of gods." [Apology 27c-d]. Indeed, for the Japanese translation of , which is kami, scholars have now become reluctant to use the word "gods," which is bewildering. Indeed, this usage might be interpreted as a racist belief that Japanese (or Chinese) religion does not contain gods in in the sense familiar from the religions that stretch from Europe to India and beyond. Or we might see the scholars as perplexed over a word whose meaning is so broad. In any case, it is reasonable to say that the status of Chinese gods has been reduced in comparison to other ancient religions. Nevertheless, at the popular level, Chinese 
gods constitute a veritable tide, and popular Chinese practices, such a burning paper money for the dead, testify to robust beliefs about the dead and the afterlife. There is nothing like this, nor the name of any actual god, in the Analects.
Legge flags the character 
, in the 1st tone, as anomalous, with one of his circle diacritics. However, Mathews' Chinese Dictionary gives this, an interrogative, as the primary meaning of the character [character #7330], with it in the 2nd tone, 
, as the secondary meaning, a final particle.
, The Master said, 
, "Whoever is called a great minister," 
, "when he finds that he cannot morally serve his prince," 
, "he resigns."
This is a key statement in the political philosophy of Confucius. In Japan, the ideal of the 
, which should mean the "conscientious minister," becomes the chûshin, or the "loyal retainer," who obeys his feudal lord, right or wrong, and is willing to die or even commit suicide on his behalf, whatever the cause. This is very far from the Confucian conscientiousness of the 
, "great minister," that we see here in the Analects. The values of the Japanese feudal system are on display in the story of the 47 Ronin of Asano. Perhaps feeling some guilt or discomfort over the use of the "loyal retainers" in Japan, we are beginning to see the term gishi, , the "righteous gentlemen," instead, although this is equally insulting to Confucian values -- the very idea that a would be a warrior rather than scholar offends Confucian principles. It is not what we call the samurai; it's what they did; and the use of gishi is just as much a distorted reading as the use of chûshin. The Chinese minster may resign, or may remonstrate or protest, even at the cost of his life, as we see illustrated in the story of Mi Heng from the time of the Three Kingdoms. Where we might think, for instance, that Machiavelli would recommend a Japanese-like blind obedience to a Prince, there is no reason to credit that.
In this passage, the use of 
is of interest. The sense we find of the word in the Analects is of being the Way of Confucius, i.e. his whole moral teaching. I wondered if here it simply meant the "way" of conducting the affairs of the , the Prince. Apparently not. The last two, four character segments of this aphorism are independently cited and translated in Mathews' Chinese-English Dictionary [Harvard, 1943, 1972]. Thus, is read as, "served their prince with right prinicples," under I (yi), character #2932.25; and is read as, "when he finds he cannot do so, he retires," under Tsê (zé), character #6746.a15. Zé, which can mean "lawful," and that I thought might carry for the moral weight of the saying, here only means "consequently" or "immediately," indicating the result of the circumstances, which is to retire, resign, or stop from serving the Prince.
The important character , here meaning "to serve," is discussed in detail above.
, Yen Yüan asked about benevolence. , The Master said, 
, "To subdue one's self and return to propriety, is benevolence," 
, "If a man can for one day subdue himself and return to propriety," 
, "all under heaven will ascribe benevolence to him." 
, "The practice of benevolence is from oneself," 
, "How could it be from others?"
The question is about , "benevolence," which Waley likes translating "Goodness" (and making it about "the ruler"), and Ames & Rosemont as the idiosyncratic "authoritative conduct." This passage is noteworthy for connecting to , "ritual, the rites, propriety," or "manners, etc. -- growing even stronger in the following XII:1.2. This one thing that puts Confucius at odds with Taoism, where rén is respected, to an extent, but is not.
The final phrase here, , look likes a question. Legge makes it a question including the previous phrase. It is not a question in Waley or D.C. Lau. Only Ames & Rosemont make it a question restricted to this last phrase, which looks the most appropriate to me, as I have put it.
An important feature here is 
, to "subdue the self." This is of interest to me because of the Chinese name, 
, that was chosen for me in 1972 by my Korean officemate at the University of Hawai'i, Gun-won Lee. This was meant to be parallel to the Confucian expression and to mean "subdue profit," i.e. put aside self-interest, like itself. However, now it seems ambiguous. The character can also mean "to be able to" [Mathews's #3320], so that could mean "to be able to profit" or "to be able to benefit." This is a nice ambiguity for a libertarian -- see The Vice of Selfishness.
, Yen Yüan said, 
, "I beg to ask the steps of that process." , The Master said, 
, "Against the rites, do not look," 
, "Against the rites, do not listen," 
, "Against the rites, do not speak," 
, "Against the rites, do not act." , Yen Yüan said, 
, "Though I am not clever," 
, "I will make it may business to practice this lesson."
This part of XII:1 is just about the strongest endorsement of , the "rites" (propriety, manners, etiquette, politeness, ceremony, worship, ritual, etc.), in the Analects, a multiple prohibition of doing anything against it. We don't even get anything as thunderous against violations of or , despite their importance.
There is the interesting device here that, instead of using the pronoun "I," or another locution, Yen Yüan refers to himself by his own name, 
. We see this elsewhere, as with Chung-kung, who is 
in the following passage, XII:2. And it was even used by Confucius himself, at VII:34, referring to himself as . In Western usage, it is idiosyncratic for anyone to refer to himself by his own name. Senator Bob Dole is memorable for having done this a good deal. This seemed odd in a way that was a little hard to explain.
, Chung-kung asked about benevolence. , The Master said, 
, "Go abroad as if you were receiving a great guest," 
, "Employ people as if you were conducting a great sacrifice," , "What you don't want yourself," , "Don't do to others," 
, "To have no resentment against you in the country," 
, "or in the family." 
, Chung-kung said, 
, "Even though I am not clever," , "I will make it my business to practice this lesson."
Contains the principle, "What you don't want yourself, don't do to others," which we saw stated more elaborately by Tzu-kung at V:11. But then Tzu-kung elicits another simple statement, as here, at XV:23. One wonders about the chronology of this. We do see that Confucius states the same principle, in the same words, to different students.
This passage is notable for beginning with the same question as the previous one, XII:1, by a different student. Although the answer from Confucius is very different, we end with identical phrases of the student confessing his lack of cleverness and his determination to practice this lesson. Legge says, "The answer, the same as that of Hûi in last chapter, seems to betray the hand of the compiler." We certainly seem to be looking at a formula, perhaps one that students ritually repeated to Confucius himself.
, Szu-ma Niu grieved, saying, 
, "Everyone else has brothers," 
, "I alone have none." 
, Tzu-hsia said, 
, "I have heard this saying," 
, "'Death and life are fated'," 
, "'wealth and rank depend on Heaven'." 
, "'If a superior man is attentive and not negligent'," 
, "'If he behaves with courtesy to others and observes propriety'," 
, "'Then all within the Four Seas are his brothers'." 
, "How can the superior man grieve that he is without brothers?"
While in the translation the reference is to "brothers," in Chinese we get a binome of 
, "elder brother" and "younger brother." Similar concern about "sisters," which would not have been likely in Confucian China, would look like 
, "elder sister" and and "younger sister" -- both of which betray their specification as , "women." "Brothers" (or "sisters") are differentiated because the duties of one to the other are different. More discussion of this is under the "Six Relationships." That is also where there is more discussion of the , the "Mandate of Heaven," which here is broken into its constituents of , "fate," and , "Heaven." We get a contrast of what is under our control and what isn't, but where we have moral choices that will earn the regard of others.
The point of the passage, of course, is that all good men are as good as brothers. This is a little different from the traditional Chinese, and Confucian, regard for family, but indicates the universality of the ethics of Confucius. On the other hand, to say that "wealth and rank" depend on Heaven sounds a bit contrary to modern ideas about the Confucian ethos, in which various rewards are due to conscientious hard work, not luck, patronage, or divine favor. Mathews' Chinese Dictionary lists a saying under the character here translated as "attentive" (otherwise "reverence, respect, honor," etc.): 
, "carefully attend to business and be sincere" [character #1138:1]. That sounds like a Confucian maxim of hard work and honesty, even as the injunction here is to be attentive and avoid negligence. We have already seen , "affair, matter, undertaking, business."
Legge flags one character as anomalous, with his circle diacritic. The basic meaning of 
is "to die; to perish, to be lost; to go away; absent or escaped" [Mathews' character #7034]. These don't look like the meanings we expect. Instead, we get 
, which is "not; without," as in Szu-ma Niu's complaint that he is "without" brothers.
, Tzu-K'ung asked about government. , The Master said, 
, "Sufficient food, sufficient weapons, and the trust of the people." , Tzu-K'ung said, 
, "Suppose you had no choice but to dispense with one," 
, "which of these three would you forgo?" 
, The Master said, "Dispense with the weapons." , Tzu-K'ung said, 
, "Suppose you were forced to dispense with one that was left," 
, "which of the two would you forgo?" 
, The Master said, "Dispense with food," 
, "For from old death has been the lot of all men," 
, "But a people without trust will not endure."
Government needs weapons, food, and trust. Confucius would lose the weapons first, then even the food, since without trust there can be no government at all. Unfortunately, starving people tend to lose the trust in government also, especially in an ancient regime when weather and other Acts of God () can be blamed on the unworthiness (ἀνάξιος) of the ruler. But this is a striking illustration of the importance of trust, and the point is valid, and vivid.
"Trust," 
, is one of the principal Chinese virtues and can be rendered "truth, sincerity, confidence, pledge, good faith," etc. To Taoism, this is what is lost by observing the rites, . In this passage, is translated by all the sources here as either "trust" or "confidence." What lack of trust or confidence will precipitate, however, is a little uncertain. Legge thinks that , the state, should be assumed in the last line, so that it is the state that is not established or does not endure, and not actually the people, 
, as the line appears to say. But with Waley and Lau accept that the statement is about the people, one way or another. Indeed, if the purpose of the state is to protect the people, then it is about them that we are finally concerned.
The translation here is mostly a mixture of Waley and Lau. Legge has flagged two characters as anomalous. The basic character
Duke Ai is the ruler of Arthur Waley [1938] says:
Finally, D.C. Lau [1979] says:
The greatest challenge to translation here seems to be You Ruo's final answer, especially the parts about the prince. Each parallel statemen is about the "Hundred Names," i.e. the Chinese People, and then the "Prince." But D.C Lau leaves the prince out of his translation. At the same time, only Lau translates the phrases as questions, despite Then we have the problem of the character This sort of question about taxation is still something lost on those in politics who love power and who think that government comes first. If the economy falters, the wise course is to cut taxes, not raise them as have several Presidents when faced with an economic downturn and, consequently, a drop in tax revenues. Raising taxes was the ill advised action of Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. By cutting taxes, as did Calvin Coolidge, Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush, the improving economy also increased tax revenues, even on reduced rates. This was the paradox of Supply Side Economics and Say's Law, whose rejection by modern Democrats and other Statists seems to have less to do with the reality of the effect than with the implied loss of control by the Government, whose paramount status is what really counts, regardless of the consequences either for the economy or for actual tax revenue. A theoretical justification for this has been cooked up, of course, on the principle of Keynesian economics that spending is all that really counts, especially the spending of the government (and not always even consumer spending, unless consumers get their money from the government). Supposedly that will help business, but then business is crushed by both taxes and the rhetorical, political, legal, and regulatory attacks that such leaders -- particularly Roosevelt and Obama -- generally engage in.
An expression of the doctrine of the "rectification of names," i.e. living up to the ideal of being a prince, minister, father, or son. So the "name," The interest here is how much of this looks like XII:19, following, but is more succinct and without a question from Chi K'ang actually quoted. But the key moral term here is
This is a key passage for understanding the philosophy of government of Confucius; and it ends with a vivid and famous image to illustrate it. It is also subject to some editorial interpretations. The translation of James Legge is, "Chî K'ang asked Confucius about government, saying, 'What do you say to killing the unprincipled for the good of the principled?' Confucius replied, 'Sir, in carrying on your government, why should you use killing at all? Let your evinced desires be for what is good, and the people will be good. The relation between superiors and inferiors is like that between the wind and the grass. The grass must bend, when the wind blows across it'." Arthur Waley's translation is, "Chi K'ang-tzu asked Master K'ung about government, saying, Suppose I were to slay those who have not the Way in order to help on those who have the Way, what would you think of it? Master K'ung replied saying, You are there to rule, not to slay. If you desire what is good, the people will at once be good. The essence of the gentleman is that of wind; the essence of small people is that of grass. And when a wind passes over the grass, it cannot choose but bend." Finally, D.C. Lau says, "Chi K'ang-tzu asked Confucius about government, saying, 'What would you think if, in order to move closer to those who possess the Way, I were to kill those who do not follow the Way?' Confucius answered, 'In administering your govenment, what need to there for you to kill? Just desire the good yourself and the common people will be good. The virtue of the gentleman is like wind; the virtue of the small man is like grass. Let the wind blow over the grass and it is sure to bend'."
Why don't we just kill the bad people? This seems like an obvious question, and one that Josef Stalin, for instance, answered strongly in the affirmative. All we need do is kill the ones not with the program, or, in the terms of Confucius, those who do not follow the Way, The term for moral goodness here is While I follow D.C. Lau here, there are problems with his and the other translations. Thus, Lau says In Waley's treatment, he has Fan Ch'ih ask about the good ruler. We have Waley's idiosyncratic translation of "benevolence" as "Good," while a word for "ruler" is not in the text -- Waley himself puts it in parentheses. In its own terms, it looks like Fan Ch'ih is simply asking about
means "go away, leave," while the usage here, with 
in the 3rd tone (with Legge's circle diacritic I have put in red), instead means "put away, dispense with," which is a central concept in the passage. Then Legge also flags , "to stop, end," as though this was otherwise identical to 
, "self." However, while in the character index Legge shows the two characters as identical in form, this is not how they are generally written, not even where they occur in Legge's own text. Perhaps they were once written the same way, but they are not now associated or listed together in modern sources.
, Duke Ai asked Yu Jo, 
, "It is a year of dearth; there's not enough to use;" 
, "What should I do?" 
, Yu Jo answered, "Have you assessed the tithe?" 
, The Duke said, "Even twice the tithe, I still don't have enough." 
"How could I make do with only a tithe?" 
, Yu Jo answered, 
, "When the Hundred Names have enough, what prince is there not to share enough?" 
, "When the Hundred Names have not enough," 
, "what prince is there to share enough?"
, Lu, the home state of Confucius himself. However, here we have the Duke talking to one of Confucius's students, You Ruo [Wade-Giles Yu Jo -- although D.C. Lau gives a version as Yu Juo]. The Duke complains that it is a year of 
, "dearth" or "scarcity, famine," and the tax revenues, which consequently have fallen, are not enough to cover his expenses. You Rou asks if he is taxing a tenth of income, the "tithe," the rate established by the Chou Dynasty, and the Duke replies that even two tenths are not enough for him. Then we have a variety of translations for You's comment. For the whole passage, James Legge [1893] says:
The duke Âi inquired of Yû Zo, saying, 'The year is one of scarcity, and the returns for expenditure are not sufficient; -- what is to be done?'
2. Yû Zo replied to him, 'Why not simply tithe the people?'
3. 'With two-tenths,' said the duke, 'I find them not enough; -- how could I do with that system of one-tenth?'
4. Yû Zo answered, 'If the people have plenty, their prince will not be left to want alone. If the people are in want, their prince cannot enjoy plenty alone.'Duke Ai enquired of Master Yu, saying, It is a year of dearth, and the State has not enough for its needs. What am I do do? Master Yu replied, saying, Have you not got your tithes? The Duke said, Even with two-tenths instead of one, I still should not have enough. What is the use of talking to me about tithes? Master Yu said, When the Hundred Families enjoy plenty, the prince necessarily shares in that plenty. But when the Hundred Families have not enough for their needs, the prince cannot expect to have enough for his needs.
Duke Ai asked Yu Juo, 'The harvest is bad, and I have not sufficient to cover expenditure. What should I do?'
Yu Juo answered, 'What about taxing the people one part in ten?'
'I do not have sufficient as it is when I tax them two parts in ten. How could I possibly tax them one part in ten?
'When the people have sufficient, who is there to share your insufficiency? When the people have insufficient, who is there to share your sufficiency?'
being an interrogative, "Who? Which? What?"
. The basic meaning of this, in the 3rd tone, is just, "with, by, to, and, or to give" [Mathews' Chinese Dictionary, character #7615, p.1141]. It is hard to know how that fits the case. Lau translates it "share," which is the meaning of the character in the 4th tone, 
[p.1142, "(e)" -- the small circle, which I have put in red, is used by both Mathews' and Legge to indicate an altered tone]. It is hard to understand how Legge and Waley use this term, which can also mean "doubt," with the 2nd tone, 
, and "appearance of dignity," with the 1st tone, 
. This is a very curious business. In the text, Legge does not indicate, as he usually does, a non-standard tone. In his "Index VII," he discusses the use of three different tones (putting the 1st tone usage under the 2nd tone -- with Mathews' curiously not showing a small circle to mark the 1st tone, but using much the same language as Legge for the meaning of the 2nd tone); but he cites the passage at XII:9 with none of them, which seems odd. It is as though Legge is not really certain how the character should be read or interpreted. In his commentary, Legge gives a different translation for , , saying, "the people not having plenty, with whom can the prince have plenty?" Now he has made it a question, but rendering the interrogative as "with whom" and as "have." This is an improvement, but still seems like a bit of a reach. My suggestion for the latter -- "what prince is there to share enough?" -- may be a little awkward and obscure, but it links the interrogative, which I think Lau gets right, with the prince, whom he drops, while sticking to the probable literal meaning of all the characters. But we get the point. In poor times, the Duke must accept, like the people, some deprivation. But a lot of princes are not like that.
, The Duke Ching of Ch'i asked Confucius about government. 
, Confucius replied, 
, "When the prince is a prince, the minister a minister," 
, "the father a father, and the son a son." 
, The Duke said, "Good," 
, "if indeed the prince is not a prince," 
, "the minister not a minister, the father not a father, and the son not a son," 
, "I may have a dish of millet," 
, "and will I live to eat it?" [after Legge, Waley, & Lau].
, is normative; and if you are supposed to be one of these things, you must be it in the right way. If people don't do this, Duke Ching of 
, Ch'i (547-490 BC) says, you might not live to finish your dinner. In our day, when stray bullets from gang shootings sometimes literally kill children at their meals, the Duke's example has a vivid application.
, Chi K'ang-tzu asked Confucius about government. 
, Confucius replied, "To govern means to rectify." 
, "If you lead with correctness, who will dare not to be correct?"
, "upright," that Legge translates as "rectify." Waley has "straightening," and D.C. Lau "to correct." They both see a pun between "govern," zhèng, and "upright," zhèng. Confucius uses "upright" again at XIII:6.
, Chi K'ang-tzu asked Confucius about government, saying," 
, "What about killing those not on the Way for the sake of those who are? Well?" 
, "Confucius answered, "Sir, in conducting government, why use killing?" 
, "Let your desire be for what is good, and the people will be good." 
, "The virtue of the superior man is like wind. 
, "That of lesser men is like the grass." 
, "The way the wind blows, the grass must bend."
. But Confucius says that good government does not need killing. Rule by setting a good example. We can just see the ears of Mohandas Gandhi perk up. And then he ends with a vivid image: The way the winds blow, that is the way the grass bends. Of course, in Chinese, , it just says that, with the wind over the grass, it must bend. Of course, the whole point of the passage is that the goodness of the "superior man" results in the goodness of the people, or of "lesser persons." So the grass does not just bend any old way. Under "grass," Mathews' Chinese Dictionary (Ts'ao, character #6739) cites this very phrase, with the translation, "the grass will certainly bend before the wind," which is literally accurate but leaves undetermined how or for what the grass is bending, opening the interpretation to misuse. Indeed, the grass bent before Stalin, and was all but trampled into the ground. But that is very far from what Confucius has in mind, as we can tell from the context. The wind, outside of tornadoes and hurricanes, can exert a mild but persistent influence, and the grass yields (
) easily, as Taoism would put it, without harm.
, which I have discussed elsewhere for its specifically moral range, unlike "good" as 
. We also get an interesting use of , which has an extended meaning for "virtue" like that of English or Greek (ἀρετή) for more of a power or essence, which is how Waley translates it.
, Fan Ch'ih asked about benevolence. , The Master said, 
, "Love others." 
, He asked about wisdom. , The Master said, 
, "Know others." 
, Fan Ch'ih did not understand. , The Master said, 
, "Raise the straight and set them over the crooked." 
, "This will make the crooked straight."
, "Raise the straight and set them over the crooked," but Legge says, "Employ the upright and put aside all the crooked." Either "raise" or "employ" will work, but "raise" goes with "set over," and the character here taken to be "set over," 
(a secondary reading of 
, with Legge's circle diacritic), means more "place, to put by," which Mathews' Chinese Dictionary actually translates in this case as "put aside those who are crooked" [character #6793:d:2]. Placing the straight over the crooked makes for a nice image, and Waley follows that translation, but it doesn't look like really has the required reading. Yet that may be the sense called for by the following statement, which is that the straight will make the crooked straight. If the crooked are merely set aside, it is not clear how that would work. Confucius expects influence, and "set over" would indeed be a nice way of picturing that influence.
, "benevolence." Confucius simply answers in two words, two characters: 
, "Love others." Wisdom? , "Know others," where Waley has this be about the wise ruler, with "ruler" again in parentheses. 
Legge and Lau did not make this assumption, and we might think that it obscures Confucius at his most succinct and vivid -- which is much of the interest of this passage -- where Christians might suspect a certain sympathy with Christ. On the other hand, a case can be made for Waley, as with the straight and the crooked, by context. The action of placing the straight over the crooked sounds like advice to a ruler. And then we have the sequel of the chapter, which I have not included here. Fan Ch'ih is still puzzled and asks Tzu Hsia what the Master had meant. Tzu Hsia gives an example of Shun, who selected the minister Kao Yao, under whom 
, "all who were devoid of benevolence [] disappeared." Another example is supplied. Yet, perhaps we need not give up the generality of the initial statements by Confucius. The principles apply to rulers, just as they apply to everyone; and by clarifying the matter for Fan Ch'ih, both Confucius and Tzu Hsia have simply made it more specific. Perhaps Fan Ch'ih, whom we have previously met driving a chariot for Confucius, is just a little dense, which is why Tzu Hsia finishes up, not with principles at all, but with examples.
, the Master said, 
, "If a ruler is upright, things go on even though he doesn't give orders; 
, "If the ruler is not upright, he will not be obeyed, even though he does give orders."
We might wonder how we can know what to obey, if the good ruler doesn't give orders? But we already know what is good, and if we do that, we are obeying the good ruler. The bad ruler simply wants things for himself. There is no reason why we should do that, if we can help it.
, When the Master was going to Wei (
), Jan Yu drove him. , The Master said, 
, "Such a multitude!" 
, Jan Yu said, "When the people are numerous," 
, "what next should be done for them?" 
, The Master said, "Enrich them." 
, Jan Yu said, "When one has enriched them," , "what next should be done for them?" 
, The Master said, "Teach them."
While we always take the emphasis and the program of Confucius to be on teaching, here is a quite explicit injunction that the job of the government is to "enrich" the people, before we even get to the teaching part. Indeed, if the people are starving or living at a subsistence level, they will not have time for study. There are two things about this of importance. One is that historically Chinese governments, dominated by Confucians, have done a better job of impoverishing the Chinese people than of enriching them. This was the result of their hostile attitude to merchants, profit, and even convenient money (there was no silver coinage until introduced by the Spanish, and no gold coinage ever). If their job really was to enrich the people, they did an excellent job of condemning everything that would make that possible -- not unlike the modern Democrats and the Obama Administration. The second point is that Confucius is obviously thinking that "enriching" the people is something for the government to do. Well, there are things the government can do, but they will mostly function as the necessary conditions, the conditiones sine qua non -- the rule of law, courts, etc. -- for what will be the sufficient condition, namely the activity of the people themselves. As it happens, Taoism has an explicit statement about this, at Tao Te Ching, Chapter LVII, Verse 133, "I do not serve and," 
, "the people enrich themselves." That would be the rejoinder to Confucius here, although the destructive practices of Confucian governments would be the problem that comes first. They needed to get out of the way. Unfortunately, for all its political insight, as a practical matter Taoism tended to leave issues of government to the Confucians while they retreated into art, nature, and beauty -- or simply retreated from the world altogether, as hermits or mendicants.
The student of Confucius, Ran You (Jan Yu) is described with a character, , than can mean "servant" or even "slave." Since it is hard to otherwise reconcile that with his status, the next meaning for the character is preferred, driving a chariot. Indeed, traditionally, a chariot driver, as in India also, would have the status of a servant. In the Mahâbhârata, when Karna is raised by a chariot driver, he does not qualify as a Kshatriya, a warrior. Krishna driving Arjuna's chariot is anomalous. Like a modern graduate student, however, who often seems or feels like a servant, it is not surprising that one of the students of Confucius would be driving him around. The character for "teach" here has a different tone than one that is already familiar in these pages, 
, which can be a verb in either the 1st or 4th tone but has nominal meanings in the 4th tone, including "religion." Either tone will do (Legge has no discussion of it), although Mathews' Chinese Dictionary glosses the 1st tone for "coll." and the 4th tone for "litt." teaching [character #719]. Such a distinction seems to have dropped out of more recent dictionaries.
, The Duke of She addressed Master K'ung saying, 
, "In my country there was a man called Upright Kung." 
, "His father stole a sheep, and Kung bore witness against him." 
, Master K'ung said, 
, "In my country the upright men are of quite another sort," 
, "A father will screen his son," 
, "and a son his father," 
, "which incidentally does involve a sort of uprightness" [mostly the translation of Arthur Waley].
Family, as a matter of filial piety, , occasionally overrides what would otherwise be moral goodness, , in Confucius. So here the specific virtue is 
, "upright." A father covers up for a son, and a son for a father. Confucius finishes with an extra comment endorsing this principle, perhaps defensively. But we also find such a sentiment expressed by Socrates in the Euthyphro, where Euthyphro thinks that it is pious to prosecute his father for murder. Socrates expresses astonishment. The issue also turns up in the review of "The Impiety of Socrates." The point is an important one. Children informing on their parents, especially for political crimes, as in Nazi German, the Soviet Union, or the War on Drugs, strikes most people as outrageous. But there are also limits. Parents who cannot believe that their little darlings might be bullies or murdering monsters make people wonder if the parents were always of similar inclinations. Families of criminals are not unusual; and most people become furious when the parents of violent and thieving bullies indignantly defend them, or threaten the parents of their victims. Confucius doesn't get into these dimensions, but they arise for the rest of us.
In his translation, James Legge does not think the Duke of She is referring to a specific individual. He says, "Among us here there are those who may be styled upright in their conduct." But D.C. Lau agrees with Waley that this is an actual person, saying, "In our village there is a man nicknamed 'Straight Body'." The Duke seems to be proud of a child who informs on a parent. Whether the case is a number of people or only one, Confucius doesn't like it.
The "She" of which we have the duke here, was not one of the major states of the Eastern Chou; and "duke," 
, here was not the full rank of the Chinese feudal hierarchy, but a courtesy rank (perhaps postumous) for an official, as we see used with Judge Dee. Thus, D.C. Lau translates the expression "Governor of She." There is also the complication that the basic reading of 
is yè (Wade-Giles yeh). Mathews' glosses a reading of shê4.5 as "used in names of places" [character #7319]. But we find a page at Wikipedia for the "Duke of Ye."
, Tzu-lu asked about the complete man. , The Master said... 
, "One who, when he sees profit, thinks of righteousness," 
, "When he sees danger, stakes his life," 
, "When an old promise is not forgotten," 
, "He fulfills what he said." 
, "Him indeed I think we might call a complete man.
We see a very similar passage at XIX:1, with some interesting differences -- including that this is spoken by Confucius while that is spoken by Tzu-Chang. Thus, here , it is to see profit and think of righteousness, while there 
, it is to see gain and think of righteousness. Here , it is to see danger and think of 
, while there 
, it is to see danger and think of 
. In these expressions means "cause," while means "to give to; confer; transmit"; but both of them with are used to mean "sacrifice life" or "devote one's life," and the translators have "give his life" (Legge), "lay down his life" (Waley and Lau), and "give their lives" (Ames & Rosemont). However, it makes more sense in the face of danger to be prepared to lay down one's life, to stake one's life, rather than right away to sacrifice it. The latter sounds more Japanese than Confucian.
The next passage, 
, , gives the translators some problems. Legge says, "Who does not forget an old agreement however far back it extends." Waley says, "When the fulfillment of an old promise is exacted, stands by what he said long ago." D.C. Lau says, "Does not forget sentiments he has repeated all his life even when he has been in straitened circumstances for a long time." And Rose & Rosemont say, "When long in desperate straits, they still do not forget the words they live by." The first phrase is "long time 
not forget." Legge has flagged the character as anomalous with his circle diacritic; but then in his appendix he does not distinguish the 1st tone in it from the 4th tone, 
, of the alternative reading. He gives the meanings as "an agreement" and "to force," respectively. For the latter Mathews' has "important, necessary, must," and "to want, wish, need, require."
The sense of necessity perhaps matches with Legge's "to force." On the other hand, the meaning for in Mathews' is "to make an agreement, to seek for, to meet, to force." So this actually is both meanings in Legge, with no difference in tone. This is a little confusing; but what is more confusing is how Lau and Ames & Rosemont get "straitened circumstances" or "desperate straits" out of this. I don't see such meanings anywhere around here. An "agreement" or "promise" seems more natural. Only Legge puts "not forget" in the right place; Waley forgets "not forget" altogether, while Lau and Ames & Rosemont make the object of "not forget" to be "words" rather than the promise or agreement, which they don't translate (or don't translate that way). So in terms of the translators, this looks completely muddled. I would think that some mixture of Legge and Waley, as I have done, looks about right.
, Tzu-lu was spending the night at the Stone Gate. 
, The gate-keeper said, "From whom have you come?" 
, Tzu-lu said, "From the K'ung family." 
, The keeper said, "He's the one who knows it's no use," 
, "but keeps on doing it; is that not so?"
By teaching his students and going around exhorting local rulers, Confucius knows what he does isn't really working; but he keeps doing it anyway. Indeed, Confucius's ideas were not generally adopted until a couple of centuries after his death. And meanwhile the Legalist School had its brief day of triumph, murder, and book-burning in the reign of Shih-Huang-ti. This did not leave people with a good feeling.
The whereabouts of the "Stone Gate" seems to be a matter of speculation. Legge says, "It seems to have been one of the passes between Ch'î and Lû." Tzu-lu is addressed by someone literally called "Morning Gate," which seems to refer to the job of t he gate-keeper to open the gate in the morning. What Tzu-lu is asked looks more like "Who are you?" but is generally taken to mean "Where are you from?" I've followed Legge who renders it, "Whom do you come from?" Similarly, his answer looks like the "K'ung family," which is D.C. Lau's translation, but is generally taken to mean Confucius himself. For the keeper's response, I have mostly used Waley's translation. With the final character of the passage, we are told by Legge, "Observe the force of the final ," where we have the added circle diacritic that I have highlighted in red. What Legge doesn't tell us what to "observe" about the character. We have seen the many meanings of this character before. The diacritic indicates that this is in the 2nd tone, and in his character appendix Legge tells us, "A final particle, sometimes interrogative, sometimes of admiration, and sometimes of doubt or hesitancy. As interrogative, it generally implies that the answer will be in the affirmative." That seems to be the case in this instance. Everyone translates the sentence as a question.
, The Master said, 
, "Among those that ruled by inactivity," 
, "surely Shun may be counted." 
, "For what action did he take?" 
, "He merely placed himself gravely and revently with his face due south," 
, "that was all."
Confucius endorses the practice of Shun (see VI:28), who "ruled by inactivity." "Inactivity" is , "Not Doing." We ordinarily think of this as the basic concept, not of Confucianism, but of Taoism, to leave things alone. But Confucius is not much different. The difference is that in Taoism the good ruler isn't even noticed. The Confucian ruler needs to be conspicuous and set a good example. Facing south is part of Chinese geomancy, that the throne is always on the north wall of a throne room. A building properly faces south, as does the entire Forbidden City.
, The Master said, 
, "What the superior man seeks is in himself." 
, "What the mean man seeks is in others."
There is not much disagreement among the translators on this one, from Legge to Lee & Smith. While it is not always clear how the principles of Confucius correspond to the modern sense that Confucianism constitutes a kind of Chinese Protestant Work Ethic, this aphorism may be set beside one of the great evils of modern politics and education. Thus, the history of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese immigrants in the United States, from the 19th century to the recent past, was to mind their own business, work hard, and exercise prudence. This was often under conditions, particularly for the Chinese and Japanese, of fierce antipathy, violence, and legal disabilities against them. Nevertheless, hard work and prudence pay off, as, given the slightest opportunity, post-war ethnic Chinese and Japanese Americans achieved among the highest family incomes in the United States, and later Korean and Vietnamese (who were heavily ethnic Chinese) immigrants seemed to display many of the same virtues, skills, and success.
But to the modern academic bien pensants, this was impossible. Economic success requries political success, even as political success will be sufficient for economic success. These principles are contradicted by the historical evidence from pretty much any era and any place, but it is sustained in the United States, at least, by the association of minority poverty, mainly black and Hispanic, with a history of legal and extra-legal discrimination and violence. The ability of Chinese and Japanese Americans to prosper, despite similar violence and discrimination, and even the expropiation of Japanese land and businesses during World War II, is carefully ignored or obscured. At the same time, political power in the hands of black officials in places like Detroit, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., has resulted, not in economic success and growth, but in urban decay, crime, unemployment, and the flight of both business and population. As in the 1960's, apologiae for these failures have turned to condemnations of the police, with a wholly fictitious narrative of masses of young black men being mowed down by racist white cops -- rather than by each other in gang wars -- resutling in the ultimate irony of black cops being prosecuted on dubious grounds in Baltimore, while murder rates now are generally climbing, from Baltimore to Chicago.
All of this fits a pattern of finding evil and wrong, not in oneself (), but in others (). Thus, in American universities, there are classes, majors, and even whole departments devoted to "oppression studies" and a relentless ideology of victimization. These days, you are nobody, politically, unless you are a victim. The ultimate political expression of this may be the "You didn't built that" speech of Barack Obama, leading to the chilling rant against business of Elizabeth Warren and the Presidental run of "democratic" (i.e. Cuba-loving totalitarian) socialist Bernie Sanders. Obama later expanded on his vision at a commencement speech:
Yes, you've worked hard, but you've also been lucky. That's a pet peeve of mine: people who have been successful and don't realize they've been lucky. That God may have blessed them; it wasn't nothing you did. [Howard University, 2016]
Well, for many years Jews were kept out of many country clubs, and other facilities, or limited in their admission to American universities, because of their religion; but certainly they were lucky not to have been caught in the Nazi web in Germany, Eastern Europe, or elsewhere. Nevertheless, that "luck" did not explain the economic success that others, in the same circumstances and without the discrimination, failed to achieve in comparison to the Jews. But now, as Barack Obama tells, in effect, the Jews, Chinese, Japanese, etc., "it wasn't nothing you did," the flip side of this is that those without economic success, perhaps while trapped in the free-fire zones of Chicago, Detroit, or Baltimore, simply didn't have the same "luck."
This is then to be corrected, as Obama has tried to do, by penalizing, demonizing, and excoriating the successful, and handing money and privileges to the "under-privileged." With bitter irony, part of this "progressive" program is to limit the admissions of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and (East) Indian students to American universities -- and note that people from India are now the wealthiest ethnic group in America, at least in terms of the categories tracked by the U.S. Census (Jews are probably still the wealthiest ethnic group by family income, but the Census doesn't track religion). The obvious quotas and discrimination involved are heatedly denied by universities like Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, but their practices are obscured by secrecy and by the fiction of "holistic" applications, where greater credit can be given for political activism (and color) than for academic excellence. When the voters of California prohibited the use of "preferential policies" in college admissions (Proposition 209 in 1996), after the University of California had long denied its own discrimination against East Asians, the proportion of such students in the State schools dramatically increased. So far, schools elsewhere (like Harvard) have been able to fend off lawsuits from Asian families, often with the help of ideologically corrupt (racist?) judges. Historically, of course, such lawsuits are forms of complaint and grievance that these ethnic groups have previously avoided. But if anyone has a case to blame "others" (), they do.
And, finally, we must not forget the principle of the Tort Bar that there is no misadventure that cannot be blamed on someone with money to pay a settlement. Spill coffee in your lap? Let's sue McDonald's for having hot coffee. Etc.
, Tzu-kung asked saying, 
, "Is there any single saying" 
, "that one can act upon all day and every day?" , The Master said, 
, "Isn't it shù?" , "What you do not want yourself," , "Don't do to others."
Confucianism in a single moral principle? This is about , "consideration" or "reciprocity": What you don't want yourself, don't do to others. This is the Golden Rule with negatives, and so sometimes is called the "Silver Rule." However, it may be better with the negatives. "Do onto others," could mean that masochists are justified in being sadists. This version, merely negative, is more in the right spirit of morality, which is to prohibit harmful and unjust actions or violations of moral autonomy. In this, the idea that Confucius has to "use yourself as a guide," at VI:28, is itself misdirected, since it means considering the needs or desires of others in terms of what I want, not what they want. Unless they are incompetent, they might not appreciate want I think they need or want (although the whole Democratic Party is now built on the principle that the Government knows best for us and has the right to imprison or kill us if we don't agree). Also, Legge's suggestion that "altruism" is an appropriate translation for is not quite the right idea. Altruism is the denial of the self, but the Confucian principle does not so much deny the self as balance it in relation to others -- something we see in the structure of this saying, which begins with the character for self, , and ends with the character for others, , as we also see in the prinicple , "wishing to establish himself, also establishes others," at VI:28. Thus, Confucianism, despite its suspicions or condemnation of profit, i.e. self-interest, nevertheless is prudent and worldly in comparison to systems that totally deny the self and the world and recommend renunciation, something Confucians found objectionable in Buddhism and in the more anti-social permutations of Taoism (which borrowed monasticism from Buddhism, after already featuring hermits and mendicants). Note where is coupled with at IV:15. The "one saying" here and the "one thread" there are thus stated with two ideas, not just one.
, the Master said, 
, "Clever words confound virtue."
This is a more succinct expression of what we have seen at I:3, with the more general , "virtue," in place of , "benevolence." As noted in the Tao Te Ching, is read ran in Japanese and was used as the title of Akira Kurosawa's 1985 Japanese movie version of King Lear. The alternative writing of 
, "words, speech, talk," is used by James Legge himself in this passage.
, the Master said, 
, "A man can enlarge the Way," 
, "but the Way cannot enlarge the man."
Legge disputes the sentiment here. Someone certainly can "enlarge the Way" with his own virtue, giving it a depth and meaning through his practice, example, and discourse that may not have previously been evident. However, this practice may be informed and inspired by the principles of the Way itself, whereby it "enlarges the man." As Legge says, "Duty apprehended is constantly enlarging, elevating, and energizing multitudes, who had previously been uncognizant of it. The first clause of the chapter may be granted, but the second is not in accordance with truth." This looks correct. Indeed, what is the point of the Way if it does not 
have an effect on the individual who studies and practices it? As the Way then enlarges the practitioner, the example of the practitioner then "enlarges the Way" by his success and example. Perhaps the circularity of this, like the hermeneutic cycle, is what has confused Confucius. It is unlikely that Confucius ever heard of "feedback."
The second occurrence of the character 
Legge flags as anomalous with his circle diacritic. In his appendix, he fails to show which character has the diacritic; but since that is usually the second one, he has indicated that in the text it is in the 4th tone. He lists 
in the 3rd tone as "anciently" having the meaning of "road, path," etc. The 4th tone, , has verbal meanings, of "to proceed by," "to say, to mean," and "to govern, administer." However, according to Mathews', this is the opposite of modern usage, where the nominal meanings are in the 4th tone and the verbal meaning "to lead, to guide," is in the 3rd tone [character #6136]. Consistent with that, Lee & Smith use the 4th tone in each case. If Legge meant that had a verbal meaning, it puzzles me that the translation reflects no such thing. Perhaps the lack of a diacritic in the appendix and in the first occurrence of the character means that Legge has been caught in the act of revising, incompletely, his treatment.
, The Master said, 
, "The object of the superior man is the Way," 
, "Food is not his object." 
, "There is ploughing;" 
, "Even in that there is want." 
, "So with learning;" 
, "Pay may be found in it." 
, "The superior man is anxious about the Way;" 
, "He is not anxious about poverty."
The "gentleman" doesn't worry about pay, profit, or poverty in comparison to morality. This is nice, but it resulted in the contempt of Confucians for business, even while they were happy to live well as government officials. 
People who live at public expense are still like this. What I have translated as "pay," namely 
, not only means "happiness, prosperity; official pay, salary" [Mathews' character #4196], but it is the name of a popular Chinese god, Lu, who typically appears in the robes of a Chinese judge. Lu is usually grouped with two other gods, with whom he is rolled together as one in Japan, the god Fukurokuju, 
-- Fu, Lu, and Shou in China. Sets of these three gods can be seen, and purchased, almost anywhere. Legge translates as "emolument," which is a word that we don't see very often but which means "the returns arising from office or employment," according to Webster's. These seem to be the right associations for the usage here. For later Confucians, "emolument" generally was to be found. It was Taoists who began to be known for living as recluses, hermits, or mendicants.
, The Master said, 
, "When it comes to benevolence, one should not yield, even to one's teacher."
Sayings like this are noteworthy as exceptions to the rule of obedience in the Six Relationships. Confucius seems reluctant to have us disobey a parent, but refusing to yield to a teacher, 
, seems about as weighty. The the serious issues, of course, is whether a bad ruler should be, not just rebuked, but resisted.
, Confucius said, 
, "Those who are born wise," 
, "are the highest." 
, "Next come those who become wise by learning." 
, "Next again come those who learn with difficulty." 
, "They who do not learn even with difficulty," 
, "those people are the lowest."
We know that Confucius does not think of himself as born wise. If he has become wise, it is by learning. The classification here of mental abilities sounds a bit like a similar exercise in Niccolò Machiavelli:
E perché e' sono di tre generazioni cervelli -- l'uno intende da sé, l'altro discerne quello che altri intende, el terzo non intende né sé né altri -- quel primo è eccellentissimo, el secondo eccellente, el terzo inutile... [Il Principe, Nuova edizione a cura di Giorgio Inglese, Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a., Torino, 2013 e 2014, pp.166-167]Minds are of three kinds: one is capable of thinking for itself; another is able to understand the thinking of others; and a third can neither think for itself nor understand the thinking of others. The first is of the highest excellence, the second is excellent, and the third is worthless. [The Prince, Daniel Donno translation, Bantam, 1981, p. 80]
There are interesting variations here in the translations. Legge has:
Confucius said, 'Those who are born with the possession of knowledge are the highest class of men. Those who learn, and so, readily, get possession of knowledge, are the next. Those who are dull and stupid, and yet compass the learning, are another class next to these. As to those who are dull and stupid and yet do not learn; -- they are the lowest of the people.'
Arthur Waley says:
Master K'ung said, Highest are those who are born wise. Next are those who become wise by learning. After them come those who have to toil painfully in order to acquire learning. Finally, to the lowest class of the common people belong those who toil painfully without ever managing to learn.
And finally, let's look at D.C. Lau:
Confucius said, 'Those who are born with knowledge are the highest. Next come those who attain knowledge through study. Next again come those who turn to study after having been vexed by difficulties. The common people, in so far as they make no effort to study even after having been vexed by difficulties, are the lowest.'
One variation here is a judgment about whether Confucius is talking about , "knowledge," or , "wisdom." We have seen this question before, where Legge marked the latter with a diacritic -- but not here. Lau agrees with Legge; and, really, it is a tough call. I have picked "wise," with Waley, because, while some children seem precociously wise, it is harder to say they are born with much in the way of other knowledge. Wisdom can be more about judgment and character rather than some particular kind of knowledge; and there is no doubt that children can display very different kinds of characters at a young age.
In the next statement, Legge seems to unnecessarily complicate it. There is no "readily" in Chinese, which is why Legge puts it in italics. It is not clear why such an elaboration is necessary. Some people, like Confucius himself, obtain their knowledge or wisdom by learning, whether "readily" or otherwise.
The next question is over the character 
. This simply means, "distress, difficulty, anxiety, poverty, weary, tired" [Mathews' Chinese Dictionary, #3688]. How Legge gets the "dull and stupid" out of this can only be by inference, presumably that those who have difficulty learning must be "dull and stupid." But that is not what Confucius actually says, and such a rendering seems ill advised. Mathews' itself features the phrase here with the translation, "to learn in spite of difficulties" [#3688:15] -- which Legge seems to reject by saying that we should not use the translation, "they learn with painful effort." Waley also seems to be reaching by turning "difficulty" into "toil painfully." This is also a bit of an inference and an exaggeration. It is not impossible that Confucius would see himself as learning with difficulty. The Mathews' translation itself contains an ambiguity, since we can ask whether the learning is done with difficulty or, as D.C. Lau may prefer, the difficulties are external, so that they have been "vexed by difficulties" -- although that is also ambiguous. Since the phrases in Chinese show a parallel construction, I think we should conclude that Confucius is talking about the same thing. There are people who have difficulty, through which some learn and others do not.
The final question is over , "people." Both Waley and Lau take this to specifically mean the "common people," and Waley even elaborates this to "the lowest class of the common people." I don't see the reason, the point, or the necessity of such translations. Legge has taken "people" to be all the people, of whom those unable to learn are the lowest. No one does what I think is the most obvious, that the "people" here, where the term is actually followed by a demonstrative ("these people"), are precisely the ones unable to learn.
, the Master said, 
, "To be able to practice five things everywhere under heaven constitutes perfect virtue"; and they are, 
, "courtesy, breadth, good faith, diligence and clemency."
Those are the translation given by Arthur Waley [1938]. Other translators, Legge [1893], D.C. Lau [1979], and Joanna C. Lee & Ken Smith [2010], and Mathews' Chinese Dictionary [1943, 1972], give a range of other translations: (1) gravity, deference, coutesy, reverence, respectfulness; (2) generosity, tolerance, breadth, liberality, leniency; (3) good faith, sincerity, trustworthiness, confidence; (4) ernestness, diligence, quickness, promptness, wit; (5) kindness, generosity, clemency, graciousness. Whatever translations we chose, we have five more to add to the list of Chinese virtues. We should also note the use of the expression , "under heaven," which alternatively means the "world" or "China." Some muddle over this is seen in the subtitles for the movie Hero [Yingxióng], by director Zhang Yimou [2002; United States release, 2004]. The subtitles of the film as released in the United States rather awkwardly translate as "our land," which may indeed be a suitable translation but does have a very different feel to it. We lose the Chinese sense of the universality of its civilization, or of the universal sovereignty of the Emperor. Probably this was not thought suitable for foreign audiences. An expression does exist in Chinese for "our land," namely 
, but this is not what is used in the movie.
, the Master said, 
, "[Domestic] girls and servants," 
, "are troublesome to support"; 
, "If you are close, they are not obedient"; 
, "If you are distant, they are resentful."
It is well to be reminded that Confucianism is an ancient and paternalistic system. But this saying also involves some issues of translation and, on the technical side, of the alteration of tones for both semantic and environmental reasons. First of all, there is a little disagreement on what this is all about. Waley [1938] says that and 
means "Women and people of low birth." Joanna Lee and Ken Smith [2010] agree, with "Women and petty people." But D.C. Lau [1979] restricts this, saying, "In one's household, it is the women and the small men..."; and Legge [1893] makes that even clearer, with "Of all people, girls and servants..."
Now, Confucius generally uses , "small, mean person," to represent the moral opposite to the , "gentleman," "superior man," or morally mature person. If that is really the sense here, where there is no contrast, is it really necessity to add women to it? And if the issue in mind is specifically women, couldn't Confucius simply say that all women are mean or all women are troublesome? Otherwise, we have two other anomalies in the statement. One is that it begins with wéi, which means "only." This may be where Legge and Lau get the notion that the statement isn't really universal, but restricted, perhaps even to one's household. Otherwise, how could Confucius sensibly say that only women and xiaoren, in general, are difficult to deal with? There's got to be someone else, like barbarians or bandits, who are also, and more, difficult to deal with.
The other curiosity is that the meaning of is modified by . The binome could most obviously mean "daughter," but it seems unlikely that Confucius is restricting the meaning that much, especially when we expect actual daughters to be raised in filial piety. Mathews' Chinese Dictionary glosses it as "daughter" or "womankind" [character #4776:12], with the latter certainly corresponding to the reading of Waley and Lee & Smith. In his discussion, Legge actually says that " does not mean women generally, but girls, i.e. concubines." And he continues, ", in the same way, is here boys, i.e. servants." And I'm not sure whether we know that Confucius had concubines himself, although there would be nothing unusual about that for the era and his class. Another clue here may be that what is translated as "deal with," the character 
, basically means "nourish, rear, care for, support, maintain," etc. (note that the tone here goes from 3rd to 2nd because of its position, as discussed below). This makes it sound more like what Legge and Lau think, that we are dealing with domestic women and servants; and it really is inconsistent with something as general as in the translations of Waley and Lee & Smith. Thus, the weight of the evidence seems to incline towards Legge and Lau and against Waley and Lee & Smith. Nevertheless, Legge is still disappointed enough in Confucius to say, "We hardly expect such an utterance, although correct in itself, from Confucius."
Other isses in this passage involve the tones. Legge, with diacritic circles that I have put in red, flags two characters as anomalous, 
and 
. The character , "obedient, humble, prudent, reserved, docile," has been altered in pronunciation as well as tone from , which would mean "grandson." But Legge seems to make two mistakes. One is that he doesn't know of the change in pronunciation, listing the character as still pronounced sun, and he gets the change in tone wrong, citing it as the 3rd tone, when modern sources (e.g. Mathews' Chinese Dictionary and the John DeFrancis ABC Chinese-English Comprehensive Dictionary [Hawai'i, 2003]) and the Lee & Smith transcription, all put it in the 4th tone, as 
, which is what I show in the text. So Legge has made some mistakes here, although we cannot otherwise but be impressed at the level of his scholarship in 1893.
With the character the problem is a little different. In the 3rd tone, it is an adjective, "distant," but as used and glossed by Legge in the 4th tone, it is a verb, "to be distant." It is hard to know what difference this is really going to make in a translation, but Lee & Smith transcribe it in the 3rd tone. I'm not sure how we decide the conflict, altough jìn, "close," in the previous clause, itself seems to have an adjectival rather than a verbal sense. That may be the basis of Lee & Smith's decision, to maintain the grammatical parallel.
Other changes in tone occur because of position with respect to other words, and this is something that Legge ignores. Indeed, without an intimate knowledge of Chinese, this would create some difficulty in looking up a character in a phonetic dictionary, like that of DeFrancis, where the entries are separated by tone. And in these pages, wherever I do not have an authoritative transcription, I show the tone from the dictionary entry, regardless of what would happen to it in speech.
What occurs in all the cases in our passage here is covered by an explanation in the Introduction of Lee & Smith:
...when a number of consecutive words use the 3rd tone, in which all will change to 2nd tone except the final word. But some speakers might choose to alternate 2nd and 3rd tones, stressing specific words, enriching the sense of rhythm. [The Pocket Confucius, p.15]
Thus, I have already noted how Lee & Smith transcribe in the 2nd tone, when it is followed by ye in the 3rd tone. Of similar interest is our old friend . We have already seen several meanings of this character before, and we seem to be looking at one of them in the 2nd tone, namely . However, this is deceptive, and the meaning here is the simple "and" or "with" that goes with the 3rd tone. The tone has been altered because is already surrounded by characters in the 3rd tone. As Lee & Smith allow, only this out of the three consecutive 3rd tones is altered.
Thus, the saying at XVII:25 raises substantive issues about the attitude of Confucius towards women and about the very meaning of the passage for translation, and about technical issues of semantic alteration of characters with pronunciaton and intonation and changes in tone simply from their environment in speech.
, Tzu-Chang said, 
, "The scholar, seeing danger, stakes his life." , "Seeing gain, thinks of righteousness." 
, "In sacrifice, his thoughts are reverential." 
, "In mourning, his thoughts are grievous." 
, "Such a one is complete."
The "scholar" here, , is not just a bookworm but the Confucian ideal of an official or a minister of state, in the highest class in Chinese society. Waley translates it "knight," perhaps because of Japanese usage (as we have seen), but grotesquely inappropriate given the Confucian distast for the military and violence. Ames & Rosemont in their idiosyncratic way say "scholar-apprentice," as though Confucius, or Tzu-Chang here, were only speaking of his students and not of what would always be expected of the learned.
One of the more intriguing expressions here is , which looks like it would be "to cause, or bring about" something like "fate" or "destiny." Mathews' defines the binome as "devote one's life to; fatal" [character #984.5]. Everyone translates this, starting with Legge, as "prepared to sacrifice his life." In danger, perhaps you should be prepared to face your destiny.
There is a little agreement how to translate, . Legge says, "Such a man commands our approbation indeed." Waley says, "such a one is all that can be desired." D.C. Lau says, "One can, perhaps, be satisfied with..." And Ames & Rosemont say, "...are quite acceptable." The character , which I have discussed at XII:7, means "finished; to come to an end" [Mathews' character #2930], so I have interpreted it as signifying the completeness of the scholar.
Legge does not flag any characters here as anomalous, but if one looks up 
, there may be a little surprise that the initial definition in Mathews', in the 4th tone, is "to lose; to die; to destroy" [character #5429]. It is the character in the 1st tone, meaning "to mourn for parents," that is secondary. Legge has this reversed, and so elsewhere flags 
, "to lose," etc., as anomalous. Not a matter of complaint, but something that might puzzle the unwary, as it did me.
, The Master said, 
, "Without knowing the Mandate," 
, "it is impossible to be a superior man." 
, "Without knowing propriety," 
, "it is impossible to be established." 
, "Without knowing speech," 
, "it is impossible to know men.
This is the very last chapter in the Analects, in a book whose other two chapters are long, non-aphoristic passages. The ambiguity of some terms results in some differences in the translations. Thus, knowing the depends on which aspect of the Mandate of Heaven concerns us -- the principles of morality, or the decrees of destiny? Legge says "the ordinances of Heaven," putting in italics what doesn't exist in the text. Waley simply says "the will of Heaven." D.C. Lau says "Destiny." Ames & Rosemont give, as we might expect, an elaborate and interpretative "the propensity of circumstances," which perhaps is a way of saying "fate" without the moral implications of the "ordinances" or "will" of Heaven. Finally, Lee & Smith say "the rules of fate." While simplicity of translation is virtue, especially for the succinct statements of Confucius, it is not possible to retain the dual senses of with the choices the translators have made. I would think that the moral sense should come first here, but it is neglected or eliminated by most of the translators.
We get a similar problem next with 
, which we have seen as what Confucius accomplishes at 30, in II:4, and in a version of reciprocity at VI:28. Legge says "for the character to be established." Waley says "take his stand." D.C. Lau also has "taking his stand." Ames & Rosemont also say "to stand." And Lee & Smith too say "to stand." Mathews' glosses it as "to stand up; establish" and "to set up; to fix; to establish; to draw up" [character #3921]. My suspicion is that we should expect to get a bit more of a benefit from the practice of than where to "stand" or "take a stand." Through propriety we are going to be morally established in life and society, as we can take Confucius to say he was at 30. Only Legge seems to have had this in mind.
Finally, we have the question of . Legge says "the force of words." Waley has "words"; Lau "words"; Ames & Rosemont "words"; and Lee & Smith (like Legge) "the force of words." Mathews' says "words; speech; to talk; to speak; to express; to mean" [character #7334]. None of the translators reflect that to understand other people, it is not just words, but language that is needed, for which "speech" might have the closer sense. The "force of words" accomplishes this, while avoiding the obvious expedient that there are other words we could use besides "words."
Psychological Types, Typology of Chinese Virtues
Confucius [K'ung-fu-tzu or Kongfuzi]
The Six Relationships and the Mandate of Heaven
The Confucian Chinese Classics
History of Philosophy, Chinese Philosophy
The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation, by Roger T. Ames & Henry Rosemont, Jr. [Ballantine Books, Random House, 1998, 1999], includes the Chinese text but not a phonetic transcription. I have previously encountered such a treatment by Ames with another collaborator (David L. Hall) on the Tao Te Ching [Ballantine, 2003]. The translation there seems to display all the tortured obscurantism of academic philosophy, totally subverting the simplicity of the original. Given the ambiguities of Taoism, one rather expects some overwrought readings, trying to explain what the text itself does not explain. That's what we got, and Ames & Hall are not alone in this failing.
With Confucius, there are also ambiguities, and we are favored with the theories of Ames & Rosemont about what it all means. Since Ames & Rosemont decide that the thought of Confucius is "relational" rather than "essentialistic," unlike "essentialistic" Indo-European languages(!) -- which by the happiest coincidence matches ideological fads of current academic philosophy, such as Relativism and the Wittgensteinian rejection of "essentialism" -- one might be forgiven some suspicion that this is all a little too convenient. The agenda becomes more explicit when Ames & Rosemont decide they are not going to employ "sexist language," like English gendered pronouns, "gentleman," or "superior man," in translating Confucius. This presupposes, of course, that there is such a thing as "sexist language," where perhaps we really cannot expect skepticism from politically correct academic philosophers who are happy with Orwellian Newspeak. That the society of Confucius, and that of all traditional China, was fiercely patriarchal and even misogynistic, can hardly be denied by Ames & Rosemont. They say:
Well, they are; but not to worry, they are going to fix it up. The "Confucian text" has a "didactic and programmatic function" that can now be "reinterpreted to serve the needs and enhance the possibilities of succeeding generations" [ibid.], by grafting on the popular political ideology of the present to make Confucius more acceptable to the Leftist culture warriors who dominate Western universities.
This is ahistorical and, perhaps worse, involves an "appropriation" of Confucius for purposes that were alien to him, or to anything in ancient or traditional China. That is a positive distortion of the text and does "conceal" the nature of the ancient social tradition. And, in any case, isn't it "imperialism" to impose Western feminist mores on a non-Western civilization? Feminists these days are falling all over themselves not to engage in "Islamophobia" by criticizing the treatment of women (include mutilation, enslavement, and sex slavery) in Islam. They may as well avoid imposing Western values on China too.
Avoiding language that embodies "gender discrimination" is easier with Confucius than with, say, the Bible, because Chinese, like Persian, does not have grammatical gender, not even in pronouns. So Ames & Rosemont are free to avoid pronouns like "he" and "she" and remain faithful to the text. They do not observe, however, the device in Chinese of using semantic gender by the addition of Apart from "sexist language," Ames & Rosemont have difficulty dealing with the vocabulary of Confucius with any simplicity. Thus, the key term Another strange translation is of The character Ames & Rosemont translate What Ames & Rosemont refer to as "realize (zhì)" above relates to their translation of Other matters arise, but I will leave this all for the moment. Of significant general interest are the arguments that Ames & Rosemont cite for the remarkable thesis that Classical written Chinese was never a spoken language. This is better treated where I aleady address this issue in the relation between Classical and Modern Chinese.
The Denial by Ames and Rosemont that Classical Chinese Was a Spoken Language
Key Passages in the Analects of Confucius; Note
In translating the Analects without the usual appeal to sexist language, we are not concealing and thus excusing a gender discrimination that has been an integral aspect of Chinese culture predating and certainly reinforced by the Confucian tradtion. [p.40]
, "woman," to otherwise neutral expressions. I don't think we actually see that done in the Analects, but Confucian scholars are typically embarrassed by the disparaging reference to women at XVII:25 -- where Ames & Rosement themselves do not attempt the more limited, and less embarrassing, interpretation already suggested by James Legge, or discuss the text or the translation of it at all. At least they could have taken Confucius to task for not being as enlightened as they are.
, "benevolence, kindness, humanity," etc., they translate "authoritative conduct," which is way off the map in terms of the translation tradition or even common sense, especially when we have the definition of Confucius himself at XII:22 as "love others." Translations like "benevolence, kindness" and "humanity" all capture some of that, while "authoritative conduct" sounds like something else entirely, with any sense of feeling removed. Translations that involve something like love apparently "psychologize" a tradition "that does not rely upon the notion of psyche as a way of defining the human experience" [p.49]. Perhaps someone should have clued Confucius in about this before he said that is to "love others." Worrying about the "psyche" here is completely irrelevant.
as "making good on one's word," which seems to rely entirely on an analysis of the form of the character -- a "person" standing by "words" -- which is a very unreliable method for meaning in any ancient ideographic language, including Chinese. While as "good faith" can indeed mean "making good on one's word," it is absurd to act as though so narrow a definition captures the full meaning. Ames & Rosemont are otherwise well aware of the broad semantic scope of much of the vocabulary of Confucius -- they say "semantic overload" [p.42] -- 
which for translation often involves choices of which meaning is the best in the context. But, despite Ames & Rosemont thinking that "this ambiguity and lack of precision" is a "distinctive linguistic liability" [ibid.], ancient Chinese is not alone in having words whose meaning could be rendered into Modern English as several words. And its meaning(s) are not something that can be deduced from the pictographic glyphs. The Egyptians had one famous word, 
, "Maat" or Muꜣꜥe, that can be translated "truth" or "justice," or the name of a goddess In turn, the Greek word δίκαιος, basically meaning "just" (Latin justus), is often better translated "right" (Latin rectus, although jus retains this sense also). The Greek word λόγος has a range of meanings from "word" (Latin verbum) to "reason" (Latin ratio), such as to deceive David Bellos into thinking that Greek didn't have a word for "word." Indeed, I'm not sure that Greek actually has a word that just means "good will," Latin benevolentia. Modern French, at the same time, has a word, droit, that can be a "right" or a "duty," which morally and legally are actually opposites. So Classical Chinese is not alone in posing the challenges of interpretation and translation that it does, especially as an ancient language.
, which stands out as the preemininent Confucian term for "righteousness," gets translated by Ames & Rosemont as "appropriate" or "fitting," which takes all the moral force out of it. White shoes after Memorial Day are "approriate" or "fitting," but they are not something to sacrifice one's life on a matter of principle, as the Confucian conscientious minister, , is expected to do. Such a translation for leaves me wondering how morally serious people like Ames & Rosemont are. The combination is the moral foundation of Confucianism, and they've have pretty much removed the moral strength from both of them, although they graciously allow for "aesthetic and moral connotations" [p.55].
as "excellence," rejecting "virtue" or "power." It is hard to believe that Ames, at least, as an actual philosophy professor, is not aware that the Greek word ἀρετή actually has all of those meanings already, posing the same challenges to the translator of Greek as does to the translator of Chinese. Fashion in Classics involves changing preferences for "excellence" or "virtue," in turn -- but to understand Greek texts we need to be aware of the range of meaning. But "virtue" itself, in English (Latin virtus) can also be found with all those meanings. If the virtue of a knife is its sharpness, that is its excellence and its power. And the idea of Ames & Rosemont that is to be translated "in the sense of excelling at becoming one's own person" [p.57], this sounds more like the pop psychology ("psychologizing"!) of self-realization and Jungian "individuation" than its does the ethos of an ancient society of the "Six Relations." In other words, it's silly. And the move of Ames & Rosemont to link with dharma, 
, in India is remarkable. They say, "the Chinese term more nearly approprimates dharma in signifying what can we can do and be if we 'realize (zhì)' the most from our personal qualities and careers as contextualized members of a specific community" [p.57]. So, from doing whatever they are doing to Confucius, Ames & Rosemont move on to "concealing and thus excusing" the hideous evils of the caste system, which is what traditional dharma, as social duty, was originally all about. We can even detect the terms of a caste apologetic there, since the word is "signifying what we can do and be" if we "realize" our "personal qualities and careers" as "contextualized members of a specific community," i.e. the caste into which we were born, where our "personal qualities and careers" are closely defined by the traditional . So we might infer that the revolting scavenging of traditional Untouchables realized their "personal qualities and careers." Fortunately, has nothing to do with this, except that it involves moral qualities of the person, but the implications, the "situational" meaning, is quite different.
, "wisdom." While they cite the character as ("wisdom"), and explain that it may not have the "sun" radical (
) underneath, this form of the character actually does not occur in the oldest text, or even their text, of the Analects. With the characters that do occur in the Analects, and , Ames & Rosemont do not describe or discuss the variation in tones, which distinguishes the verb ("to know") from the noun ("wisdom"). I have discussed these variations above at IV:2. Their preferred translation of these terms as "to realize," although they also say "wisdom" and "know" in the text, is as idiosyncratic as their other treatments. To be sure, we do not know about how the characters were read in the time of Confucius, but there is a tradition of reading the text and a question of which readings to use now.