Analects 8.5: 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 8.5
曾子曰、以能問於不能、以多問於寡、有若無、實若處、犯而不校、昔者吾友、嘗從事於斯矣。
Master Zeng said, “Skilled, yet asking the unskilled; knowing much, yet asking those who know little; having something, yet as though having nothing; full, yet as though empty; wronged, yet not retaliating—a friend of mine once made this his practice.”
Commentary
ethics Knowledge that can still ask Ability, knowledge, and possession each go with a refusal to insist on their advantage; an injury goes unanswered. The classical gloss takes 校 as paying back, which supports “not retaliating.” Zeng recalls a friend who practiced this, but leaves the friend unnamed. The series concerns how someone exercises real gifts and responds to harm.
Basis: sourced
Confidence: medium
source variant Full as though empty The Chinese here prints 實若處. Chinese Wikisource has 實若虛, “full as though empty,” and Legge gives that same contrast. 處 can mean “dwell” or “place”; “empty” follows 虛 rather than that displayed character. The reading also continues the preceding contrast between having and having nothing.
Basis: sourced
Confidence: medium