Analects 11.7: 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 11.7
顏淵死、顏路請子之車、以為之(guo3木+享、與槨同)。子曰、才不才、亦各言其子也、鯉也死、有棺而無(guo3木+享、與槨同)、吾不徒行以為之(guo3木+享、與槨同)、以吾從大夫之後、不可徒行也。
When Yan Yuan died, Yan Lu asked for the Master’s carriage to provide an outer coffin for him. The Master said, “Gifted or not, a son is still a son to each of us. When Li died, he had a coffin but no outer coffin. I did not go on foot to provide one for him. With my place among the senior officers, I cannot go on foot.”
Commentary
source variant The outer coffin Three times the Chinese gives a character description, 木+享, and explicitly equates it with 槨. This names the outer coffin or casing, distinguished from the inner coffin 棺. Legge makes the same distinction. The English reads all three descriptions as “outer coffin”; the Chinese descriptions remain visible.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: high
ritual A son’s burial and an officer’s carriage Yan Lu speaks as Yan Yuan’s father: the reply places gifted and ungifted sons under the same parental bond, then compares Yan Yuan’s burial with Li’s. Legge also makes the request concern Yan Lu’s son. The argument identifies Li as the Master’s own son. The refusal rests on what he provided for that son and on the demands of his official standing. “My place among the senior officers” renders the modest phrase about following at their rear. Legge explicitly makes the carriage a means of paying for the outer coffin; the Chinese states its intended use without describing the sale.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium