Analects 18.1: 微子 (Wei Zi)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 18 places different responses to failed public life beside one another. Withdrawal, continued service, and fatal protest can all receive praise, while Confucius himself leaves when employment fails or court duties are neglected. The long encounters with a singer, two plowmen, and an old farmer turn departure into an argument: can personal integrity be preserved by leaving the human world behind? Confucius insists on human company, and Zilu defends duty even without the prospect of success. The later judgments distinguish kinds of withdrawal; a dispersal of musicians and advice about employing people return the question to the relationships that sustain public life.
Analects 18.1
微子去之、箕子為之奴、比干諫而死。孔子曰、殷有三仁焉。
Weizi left the ruler; Jizi became his slave; Bi Gan protested to him and died. Confucius said, “Yin had these three humane men.”
Commentary
ethics Three courses, one praise Withdrawal, enslavement, and fatal protest receive the same judgment of humaneness. The sentence places these different responses together before Confucius praises all three. It gives humaneness a wider range of action than a single rule about staying or leaving.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: high
translation What the opening leaves implicit The Chinese begins with names and actions, leaving the ruler referred to by 之 unnamed. The English supplies “the ruler” to connect the three actions while keeping his identity unstated. Legge supplies a court and identifies him as Chau. 仁 describes the three as humane, preserving the work’s recurring ethical term.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium