Analects 2.6: 為政 (Wei Zheng)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 2 connects government with the character and practices of those who govern. The pole-star image and the contrast between punishment and ritual give two ways of thinking about how people respond to authority. Four answers about filial devotion move through ritual, parental concern, reverence, and demeanor. Sayings on learning then test how knowledge appears in thought, conduct, and honest acknowledgment of limits. The closing exchanges return to public authority, trustworthiness, inherited ritual, and the courage to act on what is right. The collection repeatedly asks what gives outward action its substance.
Analects 2.6
孟武伯問孝、子曰、父母唯其疾之憂。
Meng Wubo asked about filial devotion. The Master said, “Let your parents have only your illness to worry about.”
Commentary
translation Whose illness, whose worry? To Meng Wubo’s question, the Chinese responds by stating what parents worry about. This English draws out an instruction from 唯, “only”: give them no further cause for anxiety. It takes parents as those who worry and their child as the person whose illness concerns them. Legge also makes parents worry about their children, but leaves the instruction implicit. A different construction makes the child’s concern the parents’ illness.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium