Analects 8.10: 泰伯 (Tai Bo)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 8 places personal conduct beside the use and relinquishment of power. Taibo’s yielding opens the book; praise of Shun, Yu, Yao, and Zhou closes it. Between these stands a sequence in Master Zeng’s voice, beginning in illness and extending to the lifelong burden of humaneness. Ritual gives qualities their measure, while poetry and music form a person’s response. Learning is tested against talent, salary, public service, and withdrawal. The book ends with Yu’s choices: little for personal comfort, full care for ritual and waterworks.
Analects 8.10
子曰、好勇疾貧、亂也、人而不仁、疾之已甚、亂也。
The Master said, “A love of courage joined to hatred of poverty leads to disorder. If a person lacks humaneness and you hate them to excess, that too leads to disorder.”
Commentary
politics Two routes to disorder 疾 first takes poverty as its object, then a person without humaneness. The first pairing joins courage to resentment; the second warns about carrying hatred of another too far. Both end with 亂, disorder. The Chinese names the outcome without explicitly assigning the resulting rebellion to one participant. The repeated verb makes excessive antagonism part of the danger even when its object lacks humaneness.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium