Analects 15.25: 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 15.25
子曰、吾猶及史之闕文也、有馬者、借人乘之、今亡矣夫。
The Master said, “I still remember scribes leaving gaps in their texts, and horse owners letting others ride their horses. Now that is gone!”
Commentary
translation A gap in the record, a horse lent out A scribe’s blank may acknowledge a limit to what can be recorded; the horse owner lets someone else take the reins. Legge also leaves the two actions beside each other without an explicit explanation. Their common value may lie in acknowledging limits or entrusting something to another person. The text does not say why the horse is lent, so a need for expert training remains only a possible inference.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium