Analects 18.10: 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 18.10
周公謂魯公曰、君子不施其親、不使大臣怨乎不以、故舊無大故、則不棄也、無求備於一人。
The Duke of Zhou said to the Duke of Lu, “An exemplary person does not neglect their kin or leave senior ministers resentful that they are not being employed. They do not abandon old associates without serious cause, or expect every ability in a single person.”
Commentary
politics Making room for other people The Duke of Zhou’s advice connects care for kin, employment of ministers, loyalty to old associates, and realistic demands on individuals. Against the book’s many departures, these instructions describe how a ruler can sustain relationships and make service possible. The exception for serious cause keeps the duty to old associates from being absolute.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium
translation Old associates and the limits of one person Legge narrows 故舊 to members of old families being dismissed from office and expands 備 into talents for every employment. The Chinese can keep the first relation broader: people known from long association. The final demand concerns completeness; “every ability” reads it in the surrounding context of employing people.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium