Analects 7.16: 述而 (Shu Er)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 7 builds a portrait of the Master through self-descriptions, conversations, and observations of his conduct. He loves the ancient tradition, learns through sustained attention, and teaches by asking learners to carry an indication further. Music, mourning, plain food, and illness show how these commitments enter daily life. Political judgment calls for knowing when to act or withdraw and for accepting criticism. Repeated disclaimers about his own attainment sit beside confidence in Heaven and the nearness of humaneness. The closing portrait holds warmth, firmness, respect, and ease together.
Analects 7.16
子曰、加我數年、五十以學易、可以無大過矣。
The Master said, “Give me a few more years to reach fifty and study the Changes; then I may avoid great errors.”
Commentary
translation What does “fifty” measure? 五十 can be taken as an age; the English joins the request for more years to reaching fifty and studying the Changes as one prospect. Legge instead gives fifty years to the study. The relation between “a few more years” and the bare “fifty” is compressed: “to reach” makes the chosen age construction explicit, rather than establishing the Master’s historical age when speaking. In either reading, study is directed toward avoiding serious errors. “The Changes” treats 易 as the name of the work being studied.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium