Analects 5.11: 公冶長 (Gongye Chang)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 5 tests judgments of people against their conduct. The Master praises particular abilities and virtues while repeatedly withholding the larger judgment of humaneness. Marriage choices, public service, friendship, speech, and learning supply different kinds of evidence. Several exchanges expose a distance between what someone says or wants and what they can do; Zai Yu’s conduct even changes the Master’s way of judging. Near the end, the teacher and his companions state their own aspirations. The closing sayings turn assessment inward, toward recognizing faults and continuing to love learning.
Analects 5.11
子貢曰、我不欲人之加諸我也、吾亦欲無加諸人。子曰、賜也、非爾所及也。
Zigong said, “What I do not want others to impose on me, I also want not to impose on others.” The Master said, “Ci, you have not reached that.”
Commentary
ethics A wish and its fulfillment Zigong speaks twice of wanting: what he does not want imposed on himself, and what he wants not to impose on others. The Master measures that wish against what Ci has reached. The exchange distinguishes articulating reciprocal restraint from being able to sustain it.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: high