Analects 6.16: 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 6.16
子曰、質勝文則野、文勝質則史、文質彬彬、然後君子。
The Master said, “When substance outweighs refinement, one is coarse; when refinement outweighs substance, one has the manner of a mere scribe. Only when refinement and substance are in balance is one an exemplary person.”
Commentary
translation Substance and the scribe 質 names underlying substance; 文 names cultivated refinement. Each becomes deficient when it overwhelms the other. 史 is a scribe or recorder, the figure used for excessive refinement; Legge renders the resulting manner as that of a clerk. “The manner of a mere scribe” keeps the comparison focused on command over forms without enough substance. 彬彬 suggests their harmonious combination, rather than a calculated equal quantity.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium