Analects 10.9: 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 10.9
席不正不坐。
If the mat was not straight, he did not sit.
Commentary
ritual Before sitting The whole section makes a single condition govern an ordinary action: the mat must be straight before he sits. 正 recurs in the description of straightening his mat to receive food from the ruler. Bodily placement is part of the book’s attention to the setting of an action.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: high