Analects 10.8: 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 10.8
食不厭精、膾不厭細。食饐而餲、魚餒而肉敗、不食、色惡不食、臭惡不食、失飪不食、不時不食。割不正不食、不得其醬不食。肉雖多、不使勝食氣、惟酒無量、不及亂。沽酒市脯不食。不撤薑食。不多食。祭於公、不宿肉。祭肉不出三日、出三日、不食之矣。食不語、寢不言。雖疏食菜羹、瓜祭、必齊如也。
He never found grain too finely cleaned or raw meat too finely sliced. He would not eat grain that had spoiled and turned sour, spoiled fish, or rotten meat. He would not eat food of a bad color or smell, food improperly cooked, or food out of season. He would not eat meat cut improperly or food without its proper sauce. However much meat there was, he did not let it outweigh the grain he ate. Only with wine did he set no fixed measure, but he never reached the point of disorder. He did not drink bought wine or eat dried meat from the market. He kept ginger at his meals. He did not eat much. After a sacrifice at the ruler’s court, he did not keep the meat overnight. He kept sacrificial meat no longer than three days; after three days, he would not eat it. He did not converse while eating or speak when in bed. Even over coarse grain, vegetable soup, or melon, he made an offering with solemn reverence.
Commentary
philology Preparation, proportion, and restraint The opening praises fine preparation of grain and sliced raw meat. The following refusals concern condition, cooking, timing, cutting, and sauce. Later clauses measure meat against grain and wine against disorder. 精 and 細 describe preparation; the stated limits concern what is eaten and how far eating or drinking goes.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: high
translation The right time and the ginger clause “Out of season” follows Legge’s reading of 不時; “at the wrong time” could instead concern the hour of eating. The English also follows the separate statements in this text: ginger remains at meals, and he does not eat much. Joining 不多食 to the ginger clause would narrow the restraint to ginger.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium
ritual Two limits on sacrificial meat The first rule follows a sacrifice at the ruler’s court and forbids keeping its meat overnight. The next allows sacrificial meat up to three days. The text gives no explicit explanation of the difference. Keeping both limits allows the relation to the ceremony, as well as the food’s condition, to remain part of the account.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium
philology Melon and the offering The compressed ending places 瓜, “melon,” beside 祭, “to offer.” The English takes melon as the last item in the list of simple foods and then gives 祭 its verbal force. This carries the list across the punctuation before 瓜. Legge instead describes a small offering of the meal and does not translate melon separately. The construction remains uncertain; the solemn bearing in 必齊如也 is clear.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium