Analects 1.4: 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 1.4
曾子曰、吾日三省吾身、為人謀、而不忠乎、與朋友交、而不信乎、傳不習乎。
Master Zeng said, “Each day I examine myself on three points: In planning for others, have I failed to give my best? In dealing with friends, have I failed to act in good faith? Have I failed to practice what was passed on to me?”
Commentary
philology Three points of self-examination Master Zeng speaks in the first person about examining his own conduct. 三 can count three occasions or three matters; the three questions that follow support the latter reading here. 忠 concerns giving oneself fully to another’s affairs; 信 concerns being dependable in dealings with friends.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium
translation Receiving and transmitting Legge makes the last question concern teachings received from a teacher. The Chinese 傳 does not name a teacher or expressly mark the direction of transmission. Reading it as what has been handed down connects the question with practice in 1.1; another possible concern is passing on something one has not practiced oneself.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium