Analects 7.18: 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 7.18
葉公問孔子於子路、子路不對。子曰、女奚不曰、其為人也、發憤忘食、樂以忘憂、不知老之將至云爾。
The Lord of She asked Zilu about Confucius. Zilu gave no answer. The Master said, “Why did you not simply say, ‘He is someone who strives so eagerly that he forgets to eat, finds such joy that he forgets his worries, and does not notice old age approaching’?”
Commentary
ethics A portrait in effort and joy The Lord of She asks Zilu for an account of Confucius, and the Master supplies the answer Zilu did not give. He describes himself through absorption: effort crowds out food, joy crowds out worry, and age arrives unobserved. This self-portrait stands beside the earlier lament over decline without resolving the two into a single mood.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: high