Analects 20.1: 堯曰 (Yao Yue)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
The final book brings together declarations about rule, a dialogue on government, and three conditions of understanding. Yao’s charge and the later declarations place succession, responsibility, and the people’s welfare together, while changes of speaker remain only partly marked. Zizhang’s questions turn to five ways of exercising authority well and four abuses of it. The close makes understanding what is decreed, ritual, and words necessary to becoming exemplary, taking one’s stand, and understanding others.
Analects 20.1
堯曰、咨、爾舜、天之曆數在爾躬、允執其中、四海困窮、天祿永終。舜亦以命禹。曰、予小子履、敢用玄牡、敢昭告于皇皇后帝、有罪不敢赦、帝臣不蔽、簡在帝心、朕躬有罪、無以萬方、萬方有罪、罪在朕躬。周有大賚、善人是富。雖有周親、不如仁人、百姓有過、在予一人。謹權量、審法度、修廢官、四方之政行焉。興滅國、繼絕世、舉逸民、天下之民歸心焉。所重民、食、喪、祭。寬則得眾、信、則民任焉、敏、則有功、公則說。
Yao said, “Ah, Shun! Heaven’s order of succession rests with you. Keep faithfully to the mean. If the lands within the four seas fall into misery and want, Heaven’s bounty will end forever.” Shun gave the same charge to Yu. It was said: “I, the humble Lü, dare to offer a black bull and dare to make this clear announcement to the august Sovereign on high: I dare not pardon the guilty; I do not hide your servants. Judgment rests in your heart. If I myself am guilty, do not blame the myriad lands. If the myriad lands are guilty, the guilt is mine.” Zhou made great grants, enriching the good. “Even close kin are no match for humane people. If the people do wrong, I alone bear the blame.” Weights and measures were carefully regulated, rules and standards examined, and abandoned offices restored; government then functioned throughout the four quarters. Extinguished states were restored, broken lines of descent continued, and overlooked people raised to office; the people throughout the world gave their allegiance. The priorities were the people, food, mourning, and sacrifice. Be generous, and you will win people over; be trustworthy, and the people will rely on you; be diligent, and you will achieve results; be impartial, and they will be pleased.
Commentary
translation A sequence of voices Yao addresses Shun, and Shun passes the charge to Yu. The next declaration begins only with “said”; its speaker calls himself Lü (履), using 小子 as a modest self-description. Legge spells the self-name Li and supplies the name Tang, but that identification is additional to this Chinese sentence. The passage then names Zhou and moves into another first-person declaration without naming its speaker. Paragraph breaks preserve these changes; the sequence does not make every declaration the speech of one person.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium
politics Succession with a condition 天之曆數 presents succession as an order belonging to Heaven. The charge to keep to 中, the mean or central course, is followed by the warning about misery within the four seas. The English takes that misery as the condition under which 天祿, Heaven’s bounty or favor, ends. The sequence connects the ruler’s grant with the condition of the lands under rule; it leaves the precise measure of the mean unstated.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium
philology The Sovereign and the servants 皇皇后帝 is the august Sovereign addressed in the declaration accompanying the black bull. Legge renders this address as God and reads 帝臣 as the deity’s ministers, whom the speaker will not leave in obscurity. “Your servants” follows that construction, with 簡 as appraisal or judgment. The compressed clauses leave open exactly whose conduct or worth is being judged; the address itself supplies no further account of the deity.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium
politics The ruler bears the blame The declaration by Lü refuses to shift his own guilt onto the myriad lands and takes their guilt onto himself. The later speech gives the people’s wrongdoing the same direction: responsibility falls on the one who speaks. Legge instead makes that later sentence describe people blaming the speaker. The Chinese 百姓有過 makes the people the ones who have faults, supporting the English here. The preference for humane people over close kin leaves the possessors of those two groups unstated; Legge supplies an opposition between another ruler’s kin and the speaker’s worthy people.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium
politics Restoring the means of government Weights, measures, rules, and offices give the account concrete institutional objects. The next sentence extends restoration to extinguished states and broken lines of descent, then raises people who have been left outside office. The repeated acts of restoration lead to the people’s allegiance. Following the mention of Zhou, these clauses leave their governing agent implicit; the English keeps that omission rather than assigning them to a named ruler.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium
philology People and food The punctuation here lists 民, 食, 喪, and 祭: people, food, mourning, and sacrifice. Legge joins the first two as the people’s food, leaving three priorities. The English follows the four-part list displayed here. Either construction places material provision beside care for the dead and sacrificial practice.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium
ethics Qualities measured by their effects The closing four clauses connect generosity, trustworthiness, diligence, and impartiality with winning people over, their reliance, achieved results, and their pleasure. The repeated 則 gives each quality a consequence. 公, impartiality, rounds out this account of rule by keeping the ruler’s treatment of others in view. The English presents these clauses as general maxims, while their position also lets them characterize the preceding government.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium