Analects 16.11: 季氏 (Ji Shi)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 16 opens with a threatened attack and a sustained argument about responsibility: ministers cannot excuse their part in a policy simply by saying their lord wants it. Two sayings then trace political authority as it passes into lower hands. Lists of friends, pleasures, errors, dangers, and concerns bring questions of judgment into ordinary conduct. Learning remains possible under difficulty, while words must be tested against lives actually seen. Wealth and lasting praise diverge in the contrast between a duke and two hungry men. A son’s account of learning the Poems and ritual makes the absence of special treatment itself a lesson. The book closes with the different titles used for a ruler’s wife, giving speech a precise place within social relations.
Analects 16.11
孔子曰、見善如不及、見不善而探湯、吾見其人矣、吾聞其語矣。隱居以求其志、行義以達其道、吾聞其語矣、未見其人也。
Confucius said, “Seeing what is good as though you could not catch up, seeing what is bad as though plunging your hand into scalding water—I have seen such people; I have heard such words. Living in seclusion to pursue one’s purpose, doing what is right to put one’s Way into practice—I have heard such words, but I have not seen such people.”
Commentary
ethics Words heard and lives seen The first pair gives goodness an urgency and badness an immediate bodily recoil. Confucius says he has both seen such people and heard such words. The second pair joins seclusion in pursuit of a purpose with right action that brings the Way into practice. Here he has heard the words but has not seen the people. Keeping both clauses preserves the more demanding relation between an inward purpose and what a life actually does.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium
source variant A comparison and a pursuit The Chinese here prints 而探湯, “and plunge into hot water”; the comparison text has 如探湯, “as if plunging into hot water.” The English takes the image as a comparison, also supported by Legge. For 求其志, it keeps “pursue one’s purpose.” The comparison text records 成, “fulfill,” as an alternative to 求; that alternative is not adopted.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium