Analects 13.7: 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 13.7
子曰、魯衛之政、兄弟也。
The Master said, “The governments of Lu and Wei are brothers.”
Commentary
politics A kinship image for government Lu and Wei are compared as brothers specifically in their government. The compressed saying leaves its grounds unstated: it supplies neither a genealogy nor an explicit verdict that both governments are good or bad. The kinship image itself, with closeness and resemblance, remains the point the reader can see.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium