Analects 6.13: 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 6.13
子曰、孟之反不伐、奔而殿、將入門、策其馬、曰、非敢後也、馬不進也。
The Master said, “Meng Zhifan does not boast. During a retreat he brought up the rear. As they were about to enter the gate, he urged his horse on with the whip, saying, ‘It wasn’t courage that kept me at the rear; my horse wouldn’t go.’”
Commentary
ethics Credit refused at the gate The opening judgment, 不伐, tells us how to hear the remark about the horse: Meng Zhifan does not claim credit. His place at the rear of the retreat could invite praise for courage; he redirects attention to a balking animal just as the group reaches the gate. The quoted excuse makes modesty part of the action.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: high