Analects 13.10: 子路 (Zi Lu)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 13 asks what makes government effective and what qualifies someone to serve. Leading by example, appointing capable people, setting names right, creating prosperity, and teaching all place demands on the ruler. Short claims about conduct stand beside long exchanges about speech, judgment, and the time needed for change. The book also tests uprightness, reputation, reliability, and harmony through particular relationships, sometimes leaving a difficult tension visible, as when family concealment is praised. Its closing sayings make preparation for war a responsibility toward the people who must fight.
Analects 13.10
子曰、苟有用我者、（上其下月,ji1）月而已可也、三年有成。
The Master said, “If someone would employ me, within a year things could be made workable; in three years there would be results.”
Commentary
source variant A missing character for the yearly cycle The Chinese displays （上其下月,ji1）, a description of a character with 其 above 月, in place of the character itself. That shape gives 朞; the comparison witness writes 期 in 期月. Legge understands the expression as twelve months. “Within a year” follows that cycle-of-months reading, while the printed description remains in the Chinese.
Basis: sourced
Confidence: medium
translation Results without a promise of perfection The first stage is merely 可, workable or acceptable; the second is 有成, having achieved something. Legge makes the three-year result a perfected government. The English keeps the more open claim of results, which distinguishes an initial improvement from the longer changes described in the following sayings.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: high