Analects 6.2: 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 6.2
哀公問弟子孰為好學。孔子對曰、有顏回者好學、不遷怒、不貳過、不幸短命死矣、今也則亡、未聞好學者也。
Duke Ai asked which of the disciples loved learning. Confucius answered, “There was Yan Hui, who loved learning. He did not take his anger out on others or repeat a mistake. Sadly, his life was short, and he died. Now there is no one like him. I have not heard of anyone who loves learning.”
Commentary
ethics How a love of learning appears Duke Ai asks about learning, and the answer points to anger and mistakes. 不遷怒 describes anger that is not transferred from one occasion or target to another; 不貳過 describes a mistake that is not repeated. Yan Hui is singled out through these changes in conduct. The final absence is emphatic: grief makes the praise a measure of what has been lost.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium