Analects 15.1: 衛靈公 (Wei Ling Gong)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 15 tests exemplary conduct under pressure: hunger, going unrecognized, bad government, and the pull of clever speech. Its sayings ask how learning becomes judgment, how humaneness directs action, and how ritual gives that action form. The portraits of unwavering straightness and timely withdrawal leave room for different responses to public disorder. Praise must answer to examination, and responsibility repeatedly returns to oneself. Short assurances sit beside difficult tensions about reputation and the cost of humaneness. The book closes with the Master guiding a visitor through a room, giving the call for consideration a precise human setting.
Analects 15.1
衛靈公問陳於孔子。孔子對曰、俎豆之事、則嘗聞之矣、軍旅之事、未之學也。明日遂行。在陳絕糧、從者病、莫能興。子路慍見曰、君子亦有窮乎。子曰、君子固窮、小人窮斯濫矣。
Duke Ling of Wei asked Confucius about battle formations. Confucius replied, “I have heard something of the use of sacrificial vessels, but I have not studied military matters.” He left the next day. In Chen their provisions ran out. His followers grew ill, and none could get up. Zilu came before him resentfully and said, “Can an exemplary person also be reduced to such straits?” The Master said, “An exemplary person holds firm in hardship; a petty person in hardship casts off restraint.”
Commentary
ritual Vessels and formations Duke Ling asks about arranging troops; Confucius answers with 俎豆, vessels used in sacrifice. His departure follows this refusal to claim military learning. The next scene tests the group under actual deprivation. Zilu, speaking from within the distressed company, asks whether exemplary conduct should have spared them such a plight.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: high
philology Firmness in hardship 固 can give the reply the sense of holding firm in hardship, set against the petty person’s loss of restraint in 濫. Legge instead stresses that an exemplary person may indeed suffer want. Both readings allow hardship to strike; the English here emphasizes the difference in how it is borne. 窮 means being driven into straits, which can include more than poverty.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium