Analects 14.47: 憲問 (Xian Wen)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 14 tests ethical judgment in public life. Salary, courage, accomplished speech, and a reputation for virtue each prove incomplete measures of a person. The arguments about Guan Zhong ask how benefits to many people should weigh against a demand for personal fidelity. Accounts of officeholders, messengers, and failed appeals make responsibility concrete: competent service can sustain a flawed ruler, and a duty to speak can survive refusal. Short sayings turn from judging others toward learning, ability, and the relation between words and deeds. The later encounters press the choice between persistence and withdrawal when others offer no recognition. The dialogue with Zilu gives self-cultivation an expanding aim, ending in peace for all the people; the closing scenes test conduct through bodily bearing and the desire to seem grown before the work is done.
Analects 14.47
闕黨童子將命、或問之曰、益者與。子曰、吾見其居於位也、見其與先生並行也、非求益者也、欲速成者也。
A boy from Que village carried messages. Someone asked, “Is he making progress?” The Master said, “I have seen him take a grown person’s seat, and I have seen him walk abreast of his elders. He is not seeking progress; he wants to be grown up at once.”
Commentary
translation Taking the signs of maturity The Master answers a question about progress with two observations: the boy’s seat and his position beside elders. Legge makes the seat explicitly a grown man’s, which the English also supplies to explain why it is evidence. The contrast is between gradual progress and trying to occupy the signs of completion immediately. It returns to the question of becoming fully formed raised in 14.13.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium