Analects 15.13: 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 15.13
子曰、臧文仲、其竊位者與、知柳下惠之賢、而不與立也。
The Master said, “Was Zang Wenzhong not stealing his position? He knew Liuxia Hui was worthy, yet did not give him a place beside himself.”
Commentary
politics Holding a place and sharing it 竊位 calls the possession of office a theft. The stated reason is Zang Wenzhong’s failure to let the worthy Liuxia Hui stand alongside him. The link between 位, position, and 立, standing, makes office more than a personal possession: knowing another’s worth creates a responsibility to make room for it. The rhetorical question presses the accusation.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium