Analects 7.28: 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 7.28
互鄉難與言、童子見、門人惑。子曰、與其進也、不與其退也、唯何甚、人潔己以進、與其潔也、不保其往也。
The people of Huxiang were hard to talk with. When the Master received a boy from there, the students were puzzled. The Master said, “I accept a person’s coming forward, not their turning back. Why be so harsh? When someone makes themselves clean in order to come forward, I accept that cleanness; I do not vouch for their past.”
Commentary
translation Accepting the approach without vouching for everything Legge reads 進 and 退 as approaching and retiring: receiving someone does not endorse what they may do after leaving. Physical withdrawal is a live sense of 退 alongside the ethical backward movement suggested by “turning back.” Legge takes 往 in the final clause as past conduct. The English keeps that reading: accepting the cleanness of a present approach does not certify the person’s past. The reply separates receiving the boy now from vouching for his conduct before or after the encounter.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium