Analects 8.6: 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 8.6
曾子曰、可以託六尺之孤、可以寄百里之命、臨大節、而不可奪也、君子人與、君子人也。
Master Zeng said, “Someone who can be entrusted with a young orphan heir and with the government of a state a hundred li across, who cannot be shaken when a great crisis comes—is this an exemplary person? This is an exemplary person indeed.”
Commentary
translation An heir and a state entrusted 六尺之孤 describes an orphan six chi tall; “young” gives the implication of that height without treating a chi as a modern foot. Beside responsibility for a state, the child is read as an heir, as in Legge’s orphan prince. That role is inferred from the pairing. The classical gloss takes 百里之命 as administering the ruler’s commands, supporting “government.” The hundred li retain the state’s extent; li is a unit of distance. The final test is whether a crisis can turn the person from their commitment.
Basis: sourced
Confidence: medium