Analects 5.17: 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 5.17
子曰、藏文仲、居蔡、山節藻梲、何如其知也。
The Master said, “Zang Wenzhong kept a large tortoise in a building with mountain-shaped pillar capitals and roof supports decorated with waterweed. What sort of wisdom was that?”
Commentary
source variant The name Zang Wenzhong The Chinese prints 藏文仲. Legge’s “Tsang Wan” supports reading this as a person’s name. The Chinese Wikisource text instead writes 臧文仲, using the surname 臧 where this edition has 藏, usually “store” or “hide.” The English follows the name Zang Wenzhong.
Basis: sourced
Confidence: medium
translation A tortoise in an elaborate setting Legge identifies 蔡 as a large tortoise. 山節藻梲 compresses its architectural setting: mountain forms on pillar capitals and waterweed on supports above the beams. The closing question challenges the wisdom of this arrangement. The saying supplies no explicit account of the ritual rule or belief behind the criticism.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium