Analects 18.2: 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 18.2
柳下惠為士師、三黜、人曰、子未可以去乎。曰、直道而事人、焉往而不三黜、枉道而事人、何必去父母之邦。
Liuxia Hui served as chief judge and was dismissed three times. Someone asked him, “Is it not time for you to leave?” He replied, “If I serve others in an upright way, where could I go and not be dismissed three times? If I serve them in a crooked way, why leave my parents’ state?”
Commentary
ethics A change of place cannot solve the problem Liuxia Hui is introduced through his office and repeated dismissal. His two questions turn the suggestion to leave back on itself: upright service may cost him office anywhere, while crooked service would remove the reason to go elsewhere. The contrast is between ways of serving, with his parents’ state as the place he has reason to remain.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium
philology Straight and crooked ways 直道 and 枉道 make service a matter of following a straight way or bending it. The English uses “upright” and “crooked” for that ethical contrast. The repeated “three times” answers the opening’s three dismissals and gives the reply its pointed shape.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: high