Analects 10.11: 鄉黨 (Xiang Dang)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 10 presents Confucius through the details of his conduct: how he speaks among neighbors and officials, receives guests, moves through a ruler’s court, dresses, prepares for ritual, and eats. Clothing, gesture, pace, and expression change with the occasion. The later scenes include gifts, illness, a fire, a friend’s death, and encounters calling for respect. Ease at home and readiness to respond both belong to the portrait. The final, difficult scene turns to a pheasant’s flight and a repeated praise of timeliness.
Analects 10.11
問人於他邦、再拜而送之。康子饋藥、拜而受之、曰、丘未達、不敢嘗。
When sending greetings to someone in another state, he bowed twice as he sent the messenger off. Kangzi sent him medicine. He bowed as he accepted it, saying, “I, Qiu, do not understand this medicine and dare not taste it.”
Commentary
philology Qiu speaks of himself Qiu, written 丘, is the name the speaker uses for himself in the refusal. “I, Qiu” keeps that form visible. Kangzi is introduced here only as the giver of medicine. The first sentence leaves the person sent away implicit; the act of sending greetings to another state supplies the messenger.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium
ethics Receiving a gift and using it The bow acknowledges the gift. The following words state a limit on using it: he does not understand the medicine. Courtesy and a candid admission of uncertainty occur in the same response. The refusal names his lack of understanding without assigning a fault to the giver.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: high