Analects 6.17: 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 6.17
子曰、人之生也直、罔之生也、幸而免。
The Master said, “People live by uprightness. A deceitful person who stays alive has merely been lucky to escape.”
Commentary
translation Birth or continued life? 生 can refer to being born or to living. Legge reads the first clause as being born for uprightness, then makes the second an escape from death. The English here takes both clauses in terms of continued life: uprightness sustains it, while deceit survives by luck. The repetition of 生 links the two claims, but its first use leaves the choice of emphasis open.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium