Analects 6.4: 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 6.4
子謂仲弓曰、犁牛之子騂且角、雖欲勿用、山川其舍諸。
The Master said of Zhonggong, “If a brindled cow’s calf is red and has fine horns, would the mountains and rivers reject it, even if people refused to use it?”
Commentary
ritual The calf and its parent The calf has qualities that distinguish it from its brindled parent. Legge names the spirits of the mountains and rivers, bringing out the implied sacrificial setting. “Use it” is therefore read as use in sacrifice. Applied to Zhonggong, the image suggests that someone’s fitness can outweigh objections based on origin; no account of his family is given here.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium