Analects 9.1: 子罕 (Zi Han)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 9 presents the Master through questions about his learning, skills, character, and place in the cultural tradition. His own accounts of ordinary work and unfinished attainment stand beside his students’ admiration. Ritual decisions distinguish useful change from arrogant display, while the jade exchange joins willingness to serve with waiting for someone who recognizes worth. Images of flowing water, earthworks, growing plants, and winter trees give passing time, effort, and tested character concrete form. Praise of learners sits beside regret and warnings about unfinished growth. The later sayings ask for correction, resolve, and the ability to weigh circumstances after learning to stand firm.
Analects 9.1
子罕言、利、與命、與仁。
The Master seldom spoke of profit, fate, or humaneness.
Commentary
philology What was seldom spoken of The translation follows this edition’s punctuation and takes 與 as “and,” giving three topics of infrequent speech. 命 is rendered “fate,” what is allotted to a life; Heaven is not named in this sentence. Reading 與 as a verb, “approve,” would instead separate reticence about profit from affirmation of fate and humaneness. The list reading makes the restraint extend to 仁, despite its importance elsewhere.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium