Analects 9.17: 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 9.17
子曰、吾未見好德、如好色者也。
The Master said, “I have yet to see anyone who loves virtue as much as beauty.”
Commentary
ethics The strength of attraction 好, “love,” occurs on both sides of the comparison. 德 concerns moral character, while 色 here is beauty as an object of attraction. The measure is the strength of desire: the Master looks for virtue to draw someone as powerfully as beauty does. The sentence reports what he has yet to encounter.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium