Analects 3.19: 八佾 (Ba Yi)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 3 examines what gives ritual its authority and meaning. Household displays borrow the forms of rulers, while humaneness, restraint, grief, and reverence test what those forms can express. Questions about poetry, inherited rites, sacrifice, and music show understanding at work: a learner carries an image further, the Master asks about everything, and a musical whole holds its parts together. Rulers and ministers each receive a standard of conduct. The book ends by distinguishing beauty from goodness and by asking what high office, ritual, and mourning are worth without the qualities they require.
Analects 3.19
定公問君使臣、臣事君、如之何。孔子對曰、君使臣以禮、臣事君以忠。
Duke Ding asked, “How should a ruler employ ministers, and how should ministers serve their ruler?” Confucius replied, “A ruler should employ ministers according to ritual; ministers should serve their ruler with loyalty.”
Commentary
politics Two directions of service Duke Ding’s question names both directions of the relationship, and the answer keeps them parallel. The ruler’s use of ministers is governed by ritual; the ministers’ service calls for 忠. “Loyalty” is appropriate here because the object of wholehearted service is explicitly a ruler. Both sides receive a standard, although the sentence does not formulate one duty as conditional on fulfillment of the other.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: high