Analects 9.18: 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 9.18
子曰、譬如為山、未成一簣、止、吾止也、譬如平地、雖覆一簣、進、吾往也。
The Master said, “It is like building a mound: if I stop one basket short, I am the one who stops. It is like piling earth on level ground: even if I have tipped out only one basket, when I advance, I am the one who goes forward.”
Commentary
ethics Who stops and who advances One basket matters at both ends of the work: the basket still needed to finish and the first basket already tipped out. The repeated 吾, “I,” gives stopping and advancing the same agent. The nearby sayings about learners invite an application to learning, but the image itself stays with earth and effort.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium