Analects 7.8: 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 7.8
子曰、不憤不啟、不悱不發、舉一隅、不以三隅反、則不復也。
The Master said, “I do not explain until someone is struggling to understand, or help them speak until they are struggling to find words. If I raise one corner and they do not come back with the other three, I do not repeat the lesson.”
Commentary
ethics The learner must return the other corners 憤 is the pressure of trying to understand; 悱 is difficulty bringing an understanding into speech. The teacher responds to those active struggles. The corner image then asks the learner to carry an indication further: the response must supply something the teacher has not already given.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium
philology What he does not repeat 不復 says that he does not repeat or return to the instruction when the learner fails to bring back the other corners. “The lesson” supplies the local object in English. The saying gives a limit to this exchange without spelling out a permanent judgment on the learner.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium