Analects 1.15: 學而 (Xue Er)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 1 presents learning as a way of acting with others: practicing what one learns, serving parents, keeping faith with friends, governing with care, and accepting correction. Its voices return to the relation between inward character and outward conduct. Devotion to parents and respect for elder brothers are called the root of practicing humaneness; ritual gives harmony its measure. The dialogue about poverty, wealth, and poetry shows a learner carrying a lesson further. The book begins with bearing a lack of recognition and ends by asking whether we know other people.
Analects 1.15
子貢曰貧、而無諂、富而無驕、何如。子曰、可也、未若貧而樂、富而好禮者也。子貢曰、詩云、如切如磋、如琢如磨、其斯之謂與。子曰、賜也、始可與言詩已矣、告諸往而知來者。
Zigong said, “Poor without flattering, rich without arrogance—what would you say of that?” The Master said, “That will do. But it is not as good as being poor yet joyful, rich yet loving ritual.” Zigong said, “The Poems say, ‘Like cutting, like filing; like carving, like polishing.’ Is that what this means?” The Master said, “Ci, now I can begin to discuss the Poems with you. I tell you what has gone before, and you see what follows.”
Commentary
ethics From restraint to positive attachment In direct conversation with the Master, Zigong first describes the absence of two faults: flattery under poverty and arrogance under wealth. The Master asks for more—joy and love of ritual. The second pair describes positive attachments that can occupy a person’s life when those faults no longer govern it.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: high
translation The poem does work in the conversation The four craft verbs turn moral improvement into an image of repeated refinement. Zigong uses the poetic line to carry the teaching further, and the Master recognizes that inference. Ci is the name by which the Master addresses Zigong here.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: high