Analects 12.15: 顏淵 (Yan Yuan)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 12 asks how humaneness takes shape in conduct: self-mastery and ritual, care toward others, and words answerable to action. Its political exchanges test government through trust, the people’s livelihood, and the example of those who lead. Questions about clear sight and genuine accomplishment make understanding people more demanding than knowing their reputation. The account of promoting the upright brings that judgment into public service, while Zixia’s examples place the distancing of the inhumane beside the claim of reform. The closing sayings return to friendship as a practice of advice, restraint, learning, and support for humaneness.
Analects 12.15
子曰、博學於文、約之以禮、亦可以弗畔矣夫。
The Master said, “By learning widely from the cultural tradition and keeping within the bounds of ritual, one can avoid going astray.”
Commentary
ritual Breadth with bounds Learning broadly from 文, the cultural tradition, is paired with the restraint of ritual. The same wording occurs in 6.25, where it explicitly describes an exemplary person; here the subject remains open. “Going astray” preserves 畔’s image of departure without inserting an object absent from the sentence.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium