Analects 15.10: 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 15.10
顏淵問為邦。子曰、行夏之時。乘殷之輅。服周之冕。樂則韶舞。放鄭聲、遠佞人、鄭聲淫、佞人殆。
Yan Yuan asked about governing a state. The Master said, “Follow the calendar of Xia, ride in the state carriage of Yin, wear the ceremonial cap of Zhou, and for music use the Shao dance. Banish the music of Zheng and keep glib talkers far away. The music of Zheng is unrestrained; glib talkers are dangerous.”
Commentary
ritual Selecting among inherited forms The answer gives different authorities for timekeeping, carriage, cap, and music. It assembles a political and ritual order by selection. “Calendar” takes 夏之時 as the Xia ordering of the year; Legge uses seasons. The text names the Shao together with dance, keeping movement within its account of music. No details of the calendar or equipment are specified here.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium
philology Music and persuasive speech The exclusion of Zheng music stands beside the exclusion of 佞人, glib speakers. 淫 can suggest excess or an overflowing of bounds; Legge gives it a specifically licentious force. “Unrestrained” keeps the judgment of excess visible without making the sentence describe a particular sexual act. Both music and speech are treated as forces a ruler must judge.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium