Analects 10.13: 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 10.13
君賜食、必正席、先嘗之、君賜腥、必熟而薦之、君賜生、必畜之。侍食於君、君祭、先飯。疾、君視之、東首、加朝服拖紳。君命召、不俟駕行矣。
When the ruler sent him food, he always straightened his mat and tasted it first. When the ruler sent him raw meat, he always cooked it and made an offering of it. When the ruler sent him a live animal, he always kept it alive. When dining in attendance on the ruler, he ate first while the ruler made the offering. When he was ill and the ruler visited, he lay with his head to the east, his court robe spread over him and his sash laid across it. When the ruler summoned him, he set off without waiting for his carriage to be harnessed.
Commentary
ritual Three kinds of gift Prepared food is tasted, raw meat is cooked and offered, and a living animal is kept alive. Each gift calls for a different response. The repeated 必 gives these actions the force of settled practice. The later visit during illness carries formal dress into a situation where he cannot receive the ruler in his usual way.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: high
translation Eating first in attendance The Chinese gives the ruler’s offering and his attendant’s eating first in a very short sequence. Legge expands it into tasting everything. “He ate first while the ruler made the offering” keeps the action and order without supplying a full procedure. Likewise, the earlier 薦 names an offering but leaves its recipient implicit; Legge identifies ancestral spirits.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium