Analects 16.5: 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 16.5
孔子曰、益者三樂、損者三樂、樂節禮樂、樂道人之善、樂多賢友、益矣。樂驕樂、樂佚遊、樂宴樂、損矣。
Confucius said, “There are three pleasures that help you and three that harm you. Pleasure in the measured practice of ritual and music, in speaking of other people’s goodness, and in having many worthy friends helps you. Pleasure in arrogant indulgence, idle roaming, and feasting harms you.”
Commentary
translation Pleasure given measure 樂 names both pleasure and music in this sentence. 節 brings a sense of measure or ordering to ritual and music. “Measured practice” keeps that discipline within the pleasure itself; Legge emphasizes discriminating study. Praising others’ goodness and having worthy friends then give pleasure a social direction. The following trio lets arrogance, idleness, and feasting supply its objects.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium