Analects 18.7: 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 18.7
子路從而後、遇丈人、以杖荷蓧。子路問曰、子見夫子乎。丈人曰、四禮不勤、五穀不分、孰為夫子。植其杖而芸。子路拱而立。止子路宿、殺雞為黍而食之、見其二子焉。明日、子路行以告。子曰、隱者也、使子路反見之、至、則行矣。子路曰、不仕無義。長幼之節、不可廢也、君臣之義、如之何其廢之、欲潔其身、而亂大倫、君子之仕也、行其義也、道之不行、已知之矣。
Zilu fell behind while following the Master. He met an old man carrying a basket on a staff over his shoulder. Zilu asked, “Have you seen my master?” The old man said, “Your four limbs do no work; you cannot tell the five grains apart. Who is your master?” He planted his staff in the ground and went on weeding. Zilu stood with his hands clasped. The old man kept Zilu for the night, killed a chicken, cooked millet, and fed him. He introduced his two sons to him. The next day Zilu left and reported what had happened. The Master said, “He is a recluse,” and sent Zilu back to see him. When Zilu arrived, the old man had gone. Zilu said, “To refuse office is to fail in what is right. If the proper relations between older and younger cannot be set aside, how can the duties between ruler and minister be set aside? He wants to keep himself pure, yet disrupts the great human relationships. An exemplary person takes office to do what is right. They already know that the Way will not prevail.”
Commentary
source variant Four limbs in the rebuke The displayed Chinese has 四禮, literally “four rites,” where the Chinese comparison text reads 四體, “four limbs.” Legge also translates bodily limbs. The English follows 四體: the accusation concerns physical work and knowledge of grain. The different displayed character is retained.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: high
translation Who receives the reproach and the final speech? The old man’s opening has no expressed personal pronoun. The English, like Legge, takes it as a rebuke to Zilu; it can also be heard as a challenge aimed at the master he is seeking. The later narration says Zilu returned after the old man had left. Legge supplies the family as listeners to Zilu’s final speech, while the Chinese names no audience.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium
ethics Hospitality and public duty The old man feeds Zilu and introduces his two sons. Zilu’s response builds on the acknowledged relation between older and younger to defend duties between ruler and minister. The hospitality makes that argument concrete: withdrawal from office still leaves relationships being practiced within the household. The extension from family to government is Zilu’s argument.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium
ethics Acting without the promise of success The final distinction is between 行其義, carrying out what is right, and 道之不行, the Way’s failure to prevail. Office is defended as a way to fulfill a duty even when its larger success is already judged impossible. This makes Zilu’s case more demanding than a forecast that public service will work.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium