Analects 11.10: 先進 (Xian Jin)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 11 studies the people around the Master through remembered companionship, distinct abilities, rebukes, and grief. The death of Yan Yuan brings intense mourning beside disputes over what a fitting burial requires. Other exchanges test how to judge character, when to act, and what limits service to a ruler must keep. The same advice cannot serve every temperament: one student needs encouragement, another restraint. In the long final conversation, four wishes reveal different ways of imagining a life. The Master’s approval of Dian’s spring outing remains beside his judgment that governing requires ritual and a willingness to yield.
Analects 11.10
顏淵死、門人欲厚葬之。子曰、不可。門人厚葬之。子曰、回也、視予猶父也、予不得視猶子也、非我也、夫二三子也。
When Yan Yuan died, the disciples wanted to give him a lavish burial. The Master said, “You must not.” The disciples gave him a lavish burial. The Master said, “Hui regarded me as a father, yet I was not allowed to treat him as a son. This was not my doing; it was yours, my students.”
Commentary
ritual A father’s care denied The narrative names the dead man Yan Yuan, while the Master calls him Hui. “I was not allowed” reads 不得 in light of the disciples’ decision to override his refusal. The grief of the preceding scenes and the limited provision for Li’s burial help explain why a lavish funeral can frustrate, rather than express, the fatherlike care he claims.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium