Analects 11.9: 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 11.9
顏淵死、子哭之慟、從者曰、子慟矣。曰、有慟乎。非夫人之為慟而誰為。
When Yan Yuan died, the Master wept for him in anguish. Those with him said, “Master, you are overcome with grief.” He said, “Is my grief so great? If I do not grieve like this for him, for whom should I?”
Commentary
translation How great may grief be? Legge makes the companions call the grief excessive. 慟 names intense, anguished mourning; the English leaves open whether their observation is a rebuke or an expression of alarm. The Master answers by pointing to the person mourned: the force of the grief is bound to this particular loss.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium