Analects 13.22: 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 13.22
子曰、南人有言曰、人而無恆、不可以作巫醫、善夫。不恆其德、或承之羞。子曰、不占而已矣。
The Master said, “The people of the south have a saying: ‘A person without constancy cannot serve as a spirit-medium or a healer.’ Well said! ‘Without constancy in one’s virtue, one may incur shame.’” The Master said, “Such a person simply pays no heed to divination.”
Commentary
ethics Constancy gives conduct continuity 恆, constancy, links the southern saying about spirit-mediums and healers to the sentence about virtue and shame. 德 is the quality or virtue that must remain steady. The juxtaposition makes continuity a requirement both for a trusted practice and for one’s conduct more broadly.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium
translation Does one ignore divination, or need none? 不占而已矣 is very compressed. Following Legge, the English takes it as a comment on someone who fails to heed divination’s warning. Another possible construction is “There is simply no need to divine”: the likely shame of inconstancy is already clear. The Chinese supplies neither an explicit subject nor an expression meaning “no need,” so both readings complete something left implicit.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium