Analects 10.16: 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 10.16
寢不尸、居不容。見齊衰者、雖狎必變、見冕者、與瞽者、雖褻必以貌。凶服者式之、式負版者。有盛饌、必變色而作。迅雷、風烈、必變。
In bed he did not lie like a corpse; at home he did not keep a formal bearing. On seeing someone in mourning clothes, he always changed his manner, even with a close acquaintance. On seeing someone in a ceremonial cap or someone blind, he always showed respect, even in informal dress. He bowed over his carriage rail to someone in mourning, and also to someone carrying the population registers. When presented with a generous meal, he changed his expression and rose. At a sudden clap of thunder or a fierce wind, he always changed his manner.
Commentary
ritual Ease that can become attentiveness The opening allows an informal bearing at home. The following encounters call forth a change: mourning, ceremonial dress, blindness, an abundant meal, thunder, and wind. Familiarity with a mourner and one’s own informal clothing do not remove the occasion for respect. The repeated changes make the capacity to respond central to the portrait.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium
translation The rail and the registers 式 is read as bowing over the carriage’s crossbar; it connects the gesture toward mourners with the gesture toward those carrying tablets. Legge identifies these tablets as population registers, the interpretation followed here. Their contents are not spelled out in 負版, literally carrying boards or tablets.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium