Analects 9.30: 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 9.30
唐棣之華、偏其反而、豈不爾思、室是遠而。子曰、未之思也、未何遠之有。
“The tangdi blossoms sway and turn. Do I not think of you? Your home is far away.” The Master said, “You have not really thought of them. What distance could there be?”
Commentary
translation Blossoms and distance The verse has an unnamed speaker addressing someone far away. 唐棣 is the plant named in its opening; Legge identifies it as aspen-plum, while the English here keeps “tangdi.” The Master’s reply challenges the claim to think of the absent person. “Them” takes that person as the object of thought; the Chinese pronoun leaves its reference less explicit.
Basis: translation-comparison
Confidence: medium
source variant The last question The first 未 in 未之思也 gives the denial, “you have not thought of them.” The Chinese then prints another 未 before 何遠之有. The Chinese Wikisource text instead has 夫 there, introducing the question, and Legge likewise gives a question about distance. The English follows that supported questioning construction; it does not treat the second printed 未 as a second denial.
Basis: sourced
Confidence: medium