Analects 5.6: 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 5.6
子曰、道不行、乘桴浮于海、從我者、其由與。子路聞之喜。子曰、由也、好勇過我、無所取材。
The Master said, “The Way is not put into practice. I shall board a raft and drift out to sea. The one to follow me would be You, I suppose.” Zilu heard this and was delighted. The Master said, “As for You, he loves courage more than I do; he has no judgment about what to take on.”
Commentary
ethics The delight of the prospective companion The dialogue alternates between You, 由, and Zilu, 子路, for the man who is delighted to be named as a companion. His delight shows his readiness to follow. The final remark links his excessive love of courage with a lack of judgment. The imagined departure begins with the Way failing to take effect in public life.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: high
translation Judgment or timber for the raft? The last phrase, 無所取材, is difficult. This English follows Legge’s judgment reading: Zilu lacks discrimination about what to undertake. That interpretation gives 取材 the force of choosing appropriately. The written 材 also means timber or material, allowing a return to the raft—there is nowhere to obtain its wood. The abrupt ending can thus turn on practical judgment or on the imagined voyage’s material obstacle.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium