Analects 6.10: 雍也 (Yong Ye)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 6 asks how character becomes visible in governing, learning, giving, and answering other people. Judgments of practical ability sit beside a refusal of office. Yan Hui’s love of learning, steadiness in humaneness, and joy under hardship are framed by grief at his early death. The short sayings test relations between substance and refinement, knowledge and delight, reverence and distance. The closing exchange moves from the achievement of helping the people on a vast scale to a nearby method of humaneness: using one’s own desire for a firm footing and progress to help others find theirs.
Analects 6.10
冉求曰、非不說子之道、力不足也。子曰、力不足者、中道而廢、今女畫。
Ran Qiu said, “It is not that I take no pleasure in your Way, but that my strength falls short.” The Master said, “Those whose strength falls short give out halfway. You are drawing the line now.”
Commentary
philology Where the line is drawn Ran Qiu speaks of the Master’s 道, the Way; the answer turns the same word into the road on which someone might give out halfway. 畫 adds the image of drawing a boundary. The reply distinguishes a limit encountered in effort from one set in advance, challenging Ran Qiu’s account of his own inability.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium