Analects 12.19: 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 12.19
李康子問政於孔子、曰、如殺無道、以就有道、何如。孔子對曰、子為政、焉用殺、子欲善、而民善矣、君子之德風、小人之德草、草上之風必偃。
Ji Kangzi asked Confucius about government: “If I killed those without the Way in order to advance those who have the Way, what would you say?” Confucius replied, “You govern; what need have you to kill? If you desire goodness, the people will be good. The character of those above is wind; the character of those below is grass. When the wind passes over the grass, it must bend.”
Commentary
politics An answer to proposed killing Ji Kangzi proposes killing those without the Way to advance those who have it. Confucius redirects him to his own desire for goodness and the people’s response. The wind-and-grass image makes that influence decisive. The answer rejects the proposed killing while retaining a strongly unequal relation between those who govern and those governed.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: high
translation Those above and those below 君子 and 小人 carry a social contrast here, made explicit in Legge’s superiors and inferiors. “Those above” and “those below” preserve that contrast instead of importing the purely ethical pair exemplary and petty. 德 is rendered “character” in both halves: the metaphor concerns the effect of the governing person’s character on the people’s character.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium
source variant The surname in the third exchange The third exchange again prints 李康子. The English keeps Ji Kangzi, taking 季 as the intended surname, consistent with Legge’s Chi K’ang and the preceding two exchanges. The Chinese remains unchanged.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium