Analects 3.7: 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 3.7
子曰、君子無所爭、必也射乎、揖讓而升、下而飲、其爭也君子。
The Master said, “An exemplary person does not compete. If they must compete, surely it is in archery! They bow and yield as they go up, then come down and drink. Even their competition is exemplary.”
Commentary
ritual Competition shaped by yielding Bowing and yielding precede going up; drinking follows coming down. These actions give the contest a form in which rivalry remains bounded by regard for others. Legge specifies a drinking forfeit, whereas the Chinese here simply says “drink.” The English keeps that simpler action and preserves 君子 at both ends through “exemplary person” and “exemplary.”
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium