Analects 3.8: 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 3.8
子夏問曰、巧笑倩兮、美目盼兮、素以為絢兮。何為也。子曰、繪事後素。曰、禮後乎。子曰、起予者商也、始可與言詩已矣。
Zixia asked, “‘Her lovely smile, with its dimples; her beautiful eyes, so clear! Plain white brings out the colors.’ What does this mean?” The Master said, “Painting comes after the plain ground.” Zixia said, “Then does ritual come after?” The Master said, “Shang, you set me thinking! Now I can begin to discuss the Poems with you.”
Commentary
philology The plain ground and what follows The translation takes 素 as a plain white ground and 後 as “come after”: color needs a ground on which to appear. Legge also takes the ground to precede painting. Reading 後 as “put after” would instead make white the finishing work. Zixia’s question transfers the sequence to ritual, but the dialogue leaves the prior quality unnamed. It invites the relation between inward formation and ritual without expressly identifying that foundation.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium
ethics A learner sets the teacher thinking Zixia carries an image from the quoted verse into a question about ritual. Shang is the name the Master uses for him in the reply. 起予 gives the learner a part in prompting the teacher’s thought. The closing invitation to discuss the Poems repeats the invitation to Zigong in 1.15, where a learner likewise extends an image rather than merely repeating it.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: high
source variant A question printed with 為 The question is printed 何為, which can ask what something does or is for. Legge reads it as a question about the quoted passage’s meaning, the sense expressed directly by 何謂. The English “What does this mean?” follows that reading. 為 and 謂 are different characters; the displayed Chinese retains 為.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium