Analects 14.6: 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 14.6
南宮适問於孔子曰、羿善射、奡盪舟、俱不得其死然、禹稷躬稼、而有天下夫子不答。南宮适出。子曰、君子哉若人、尚德哉若人。
Nangong Kuo asked Confucius, “Yi excelled at archery, and Ao could haul a boat, yet neither met a natural death. Yu and Ji worked the fields themselves and came to possess all under Heaven.” The Master did not answer. After Nangong Kuo left, the Master said, “What an exemplary person! How he honors virtue!”
Commentary
ethics What Nangong Kuo values Nangong Kuo contrasts the violent ends of two powerful men with the farmers’ possession of the realm. Confucius first leaves the claim unanswered, then praises the questioner’s esteem for virtue. This sequence establishes what he values in the question without turning his silence into a detailed endorsement of its historical account.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium
translation The force needed to move a boat Legge makes Ao move a boat on land, bringing out extraordinary strength. The Chinese says 盪舟 without naming land. “Haul a boat” retains forceful movement while leaving that setting unstated. Yu and Ji’s possession of the realm remains the questioner’s compressed claim; the English adds no account of their descendants.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium