Nat to know words (the meaning of words) is to be without the fluid needful to
understand
men.
Ezra Pound - Confucian Analects
the
vroper man honours solid merit and is easy on the multi-
tude, praises the honest and pities the incompetent. If I have enough solid talent what is there in men I can't put up with? If I haven't solid merit, men will be ready enough to ward me off, why should I ward off others?
*The shih inight very well have been translated knight in the a~e of European chivalry on various counts.
127
not cast off the old without great reason. old families? ]
XI
[L. members of
1. Chau had eight officers : Po-ta, Po-kwo, Chung-tu, Chung-hwu, Shu-ya, Shu-hsia, Chi-sui, Chi-kwa.
126
? ? ? ? ? ? ? CONFUCIAN ANALECTS
IV
BOOK NINETEEN
x
1. Tze-hsia said : A proper man keeping his word [o'r: whose word is believed] can make the people work hard; if he don't keep his word they will consider the same work an oppression. A man who keeps his word can remonstrate with his prince, if he do not keep it, the
remonstrance will be taken for insult.
XI
1. Tze-hsia said : If a man does not transgress the barriers of the great virtues, he can have leeway in smalJ (go out and in).
XII
1. Tze-Yu said: Tze-hsia's door-men and little chaps
are correct in sprinkling and sweeping, answer politely, make their entries and exits, all in a n1odel manner, these are branches, \Vithout the root, what about it?
2. Tze-hsia heard it and said: Too bad, Tze-Yu is wrong. What does a proper man's method put first and teach and put second and loaf over? By analogy with plants and trees he divides (activities) into kinds, but how could the proper man's behaviour bring false accusa-
tion against them? Only the sag. e starts out knowing all
the consequences.
XIII
1. Tze-hsia said : When the man in office has an abundance (of energy) he studies; when the studious man has an abundance he goes into office.
XIV
1. Tze-yu said : Lamentation ought to stop at the end
of the mourning period.
F,
T z e - h s i a s a i d : I f a m e a n contriva~ce f u n c t i o n s there must be something in it worth attention, but car7 it far : 'ware mud. That's why the proper man doesn t use it.
v
1 Tzc-hsia said : To be daily aware of what he lacks, not. forgetting what he can make function (capacity due to what bits of knowledge he has put together), can be defined as loving study.
VI
1. Tze-hsia said: Extending study, keep,ing the. will hard yet supple; putting a fine edge on ? nes questwns, and stickin' close to what one really thmks. Manhood takes root in the centre of these.
VII
1. Tze-hsia said: Artificers (the hundred works) li". e in a market amid the outlay of their tools to perfect their technique. [The szu' (? cf Arab. suk), tools spread for use, also concurrence of shops of similar wa;e. J. The proper man studies so that he arrive at proceechng in the process. [Very much: . pour savoir vivre. l? eally learn how to live, up to the hilt. ]
VIII
1. Tze-hsia said : The mean man just has to gloss
his faults.
IX
1. Tze-hsia said: The proper man undergoes thrhee transformations, at a distance : stern; gentle to approac ; his words firm as a grindstone.
128
1 .
129
. ? - - - - - - --------. . . --
? CONFUCIAN ANALECTS
xv
1. Tze-yu said: My friend Chang can do difficult things, oh yes, but he is not completely humane.
XVI
1. Master Tsang said: Magnificent! Chang is mag- nificent, but hard to be human with him [or: difficult to combine all that splendour with being really human].
XVII
1. ! Master Tsang said: I've heard our big man say you can't tell all there is in a man until he is mourning his relatives.
XVIII
1. ! Master Tsang said : I've heard our big man say Mang Chwang was a true son, others can be that, but when it comes to his not changing his father's ministers, nor his father's mode of government, that is hard for 'em to match.
XIX
1. The Mang chief having made him chief criminal judge, Yang Fu questioned Master Tsang. Master Tsang said: The high-ups have lost the way, the people have been in disorder for a long time, when you find it out, pity 'em, don't think yourself clever.
"A bad name " xx
1. Tze-kung said : "Crupper's" uncleanness wasn't
as low as all that. That's why the proper man hates living at the bottom of the drain-slope where all the rot flows down.
130
BOOK NINETEEN
XXI
1. 1'ze-kung said : A superior man's errors are like sOlar and lunar eclipses, when he goes wrong everyone sees it, when he comes back to course again all lift their faces. [Yang can also mean: trust. ]
xxrr
1. Kung-sun Ch'ao of Wei asked Tze-kung: How did Chung-ni (Chung secundus, Confucius) study?
2. Tze-kung said : Wan and Wu's system hadn't com- pletely collapsed, the men of solid talent conserved the great features (the great parts of it were rooted in their memory) and the minor items were rooted in the memories of the men without talents, no one was wholly without something of Wan and Wu's method, how could the big man help studying it, though without an ordinary teacher?
xxrrI
1. Shu-sun Wu-shu said to a high court officer : Tze- kung is superior to Chung-ni.
2. Tze-fu Ching-po told Tze-kung, Tze-kung said: By analogy with a house wall, mine is shoulder high, one can look over it at the house and family, and whalt is good in them.
3. The big man's wall is many times the height of an eight-footer, if you don't find the door and go in, you can't see the splendour of the feudal temple, or the hundred officers' riches.
4. But how few find the door, wasn't that big chap's remark perfectly suited to him?
XXIV
1. Shu-san Wu-shu spoke ill of Chung-ni. Tze-kung said : It's no use, you can't break him down. It's the other men that are " hillocks " [play on Confucius' familiar
131
? ? ? ? ? name Ch'iu "hillock"] and hummocks that one can walk up. Chung-ni, the sun, the moon you cannot walk up stairs to. Though a man wants to cut himself off, what harm does that do to the sun and moon, many people see them who cannot m. easure a meridian. [The pictogram is a meruure of the sun-ris@, rather than of capwcitY", as L. ]
xxv
1. Ch'an Tze-ch'in said to Tze-kung, You are over- doing this respectfulness, how is Chung-ni more talented than you are ?
2. Tze-kung said: The proper man can be known fron1 a single sentence and one sentence is enough to show what a man does not know. Can't neglect keeping the word aligned with the mind.
3. You can't reach the big man, just as you can't get to heaven by walking up stairs.
4. . If the big man were in charge of a state or clan, what 1s properly called establishment would be established the proper system would work, the traces would be hitched so that they would draw, energies would be harmonized. He would be splendid in life, lamented in death, how can one match him ?
BOOK TWENTY
I
1. Yao said: Attend! you Shun, heaven's calendar [sun under grain under cover] has now pulsed through in its count to take root in your personal strength, hang on to what it is all about, hand and foot (biceps and legs) if within the four seas there be dearth and exhaustion, tbc defining light of heaven [L. heaven's revenueJ will
come to perpetual end.
2. Shun gave the same sealed order to Yii. [T'ang,
as in the Shu IV, iii, 3. ]
3. Said : I, the little child Li (" Shoe") dare to use
the black victin1; dare clearly announce to the Whiteness above all Whiteness above all kings, to the Dynasty Overspreading; dare not pardon offences, nor let those who serve the spread cloth of heaven be overgrown; their report roots in the mind of the O'erspreading.
If in us, the emperor's person, be fault, it is not by the myriad regions, if the myriad regions have fault, it takes root from our person. [Cf. Wu, in the Shu V. iii. ]
4. Chao had a great conferring : honest men could be rich.
5. Although he had the Chao relatives, not a matter of someone else's manhood, if the hundred clans err, it is rooted in me the one man.
6. He kept watch over the balances (weights) and the measuring [ [ shd/ say taking the sun. L . / measures], he investigated the statutes and regulations [or better: the functioning of the regulations, how they worked, whether they worked. La Vie du Droit], he combed out the useless officials, and the government of the Four Coigns
went ahead.
7. He built up wasted states, restored broken succes-
sions, promoted men who had retired, and the people of the empire returned to good sense.
133
132
---------
? CONFUCIAN ANALECTS
-
? ? ? ? ? ? ? CONFUCIAN ANALECTS
8. What he put weight on was feeding the people,
mourning and offerings.
9. By magnanimity reached to everyone; by keeping his word got their trust; got through a lot of work by attention to detail and kept them happy by justice.
II
1. Tze-chang asked Kung-tze how one should carry
on government.
He said : Honour the five excellences and throw out
the four evils.
Tze-chang said: How do you define the five excellences? He said : The proper man [here, man-in-authority] is
considerate without being extravagant, energetic (or even
urging) without grumbling, desires without greed, is honourable without hauteur, and boldly protective without ferocity.
2. Tze-chang said: What do you mean by being
considerate not extravagant? He said : Cause the people
to profit by what he profits by (their cut of grain), isn't that being considerate without extravagance? When he picks out the right work for them, they work, who will grumble; desiring manhood and attaining it, is that greed? Whether he is dealing with many or few, with small matter or great, the proper man does not venture to be ehurly, is not that being honourable and not haughty? The proper man adjusts his robe and cap, honours what is clearly worthy of honour, [Occhio per la mente. If a strict styli. >t is distinguishing chien (4) 860 M and' shih (4) 5789, the former wd/ be eye-sight and the latter, I take it, mind-sight, intellectual clarity] with dignity so that others look up to him and even fear him, isn't that severity without ferocity?
3. Tze-chang said : How define the four evils? He said: Not to teach people and then put them to death is cruelty; not to warn people and then expect them to have
134
BOOK TWENTY
things finished perfectly, is called oppression. [L. admir- ably: to require suddenly the full tale of work without having given warning. ] To be dilatory (sloppy) in giving orders and exigent in expecting them carried out at the precise date is cheating.
6752. This tse (2-5) certainly cannot be trans- lated thief in oil eoonte. xts, it is an a. busive term, centre of meaning seems to be nearer to "cheat" though theft is centainly included. "Con game" with violence, any thieving trick.
As in giving to others, to come out and give in a stingy manner .
Thus L. , but if we are getting down to brass tacks, I should think the ch'u na: go out- insert, might. refer oto the familiar "kick-back," getting persorwl repayment from an official payment to another.
called having assistant-officers.
Unless it refers to kick-back or something
more than manner, seems hardly great enough
to be listed among the four hateful or e<vil things. 4809. o(+. 5). That is to say it wd/ seem to be stretching the 0(4-5) into a milder meaning than >t usually has in the Four Books. P. on appelle cela se comporter comme un collecteur d'impots.
III
l. He said : Not to know the decree [the sealed mouth. L. adds "of heaven," not :to recognize destiny] is to be without the means of being a proper man (the ancestral voice is incomplete).
2. Not to know the rites is to be without means to
construct.
3.
Nat to know words (the meaning of words) is to be without the fluid needful to understand men.
135
? ? ? ? ? BRIEF CONCORDANCE
Book Chapter 16, Tactics
II 2, No twisty thoughts. Government: II, 19; XII, 7; XII, 14; XIII, 1. Veracity: II, 22; IX, 24.
Flattery : II, 24, i.
}\_rrangement of sequence of the ODES: IX, 14. Men not horses : X, 12.
The Old Treasury: XI, 13.
VI, 11, cf/Agassiz.
VI, 12, The official.
vroper man honours solid merit and is easy on the multi-
tude, praises the honest and pities the incompetent. If I have enough solid talent what is there in men I can't put up with? If I haven't solid merit, men will be ready enough to ward me off, why should I ward off others?
*The shih inight very well have been translated knight in the a~e of European chivalry on various counts.
127
not cast off the old without great reason. old families? ]
XI
[L. members of
1. Chau had eight officers : Po-ta, Po-kwo, Chung-tu, Chung-hwu, Shu-ya, Shu-hsia, Chi-sui, Chi-kwa.
126
? ? ? ? ? ? ? CONFUCIAN ANALECTS
IV
BOOK NINETEEN
x
1. Tze-hsia said : A proper man keeping his word [o'r: whose word is believed] can make the people work hard; if he don't keep his word they will consider the same work an oppression. A man who keeps his word can remonstrate with his prince, if he do not keep it, the
remonstrance will be taken for insult.
XI
1. Tze-hsia said : If a man does not transgress the barriers of the great virtues, he can have leeway in smalJ (go out and in).
XII
1. Tze-Yu said: Tze-hsia's door-men and little chaps
are correct in sprinkling and sweeping, answer politely, make their entries and exits, all in a n1odel manner, these are branches, \Vithout the root, what about it?
2. Tze-hsia heard it and said: Too bad, Tze-Yu is wrong. What does a proper man's method put first and teach and put second and loaf over? By analogy with plants and trees he divides (activities) into kinds, but how could the proper man's behaviour bring false accusa-
tion against them? Only the sag. e starts out knowing all
the consequences.
XIII
1. Tze-hsia said : When the man in office has an abundance (of energy) he studies; when the studious man has an abundance he goes into office.
XIV
1. Tze-yu said : Lamentation ought to stop at the end
of the mourning period.
F,
T z e - h s i a s a i d : I f a m e a n contriva~ce f u n c t i o n s there must be something in it worth attention, but car7 it far : 'ware mud. That's why the proper man doesn t use it.
v
1 Tzc-hsia said : To be daily aware of what he lacks, not. forgetting what he can make function (capacity due to what bits of knowledge he has put together), can be defined as loving study.
VI
1. Tze-hsia said: Extending study, keep,ing the. will hard yet supple; putting a fine edge on ? nes questwns, and stickin' close to what one really thmks. Manhood takes root in the centre of these.
VII
1. Tze-hsia said: Artificers (the hundred works) li". e in a market amid the outlay of their tools to perfect their technique. [The szu' (? cf Arab. suk), tools spread for use, also concurrence of shops of similar wa;e. J. The proper man studies so that he arrive at proceechng in the process. [Very much: . pour savoir vivre. l? eally learn how to live, up to the hilt. ]
VIII
1. Tze-hsia said : The mean man just has to gloss
his faults.
IX
1. Tze-hsia said: The proper man undergoes thrhee transformations, at a distance : stern; gentle to approac ; his words firm as a grindstone.
128
1 .
129
. ? - - - - - - --------. . . --
? CONFUCIAN ANALECTS
xv
1. Tze-yu said: My friend Chang can do difficult things, oh yes, but he is not completely humane.
XVI
1. Master Tsang said: Magnificent! Chang is mag- nificent, but hard to be human with him [or: difficult to combine all that splendour with being really human].
XVII
1. ! Master Tsang said: I've heard our big man say you can't tell all there is in a man until he is mourning his relatives.
XVIII
1. ! Master Tsang said : I've heard our big man say Mang Chwang was a true son, others can be that, but when it comes to his not changing his father's ministers, nor his father's mode of government, that is hard for 'em to match.
XIX
1. The Mang chief having made him chief criminal judge, Yang Fu questioned Master Tsang. Master Tsang said: The high-ups have lost the way, the people have been in disorder for a long time, when you find it out, pity 'em, don't think yourself clever.
"A bad name " xx
1. Tze-kung said : "Crupper's" uncleanness wasn't
as low as all that. That's why the proper man hates living at the bottom of the drain-slope where all the rot flows down.
130
BOOK NINETEEN
XXI
1. 1'ze-kung said : A superior man's errors are like sOlar and lunar eclipses, when he goes wrong everyone sees it, when he comes back to course again all lift their faces. [Yang can also mean: trust. ]
xxrr
1. Kung-sun Ch'ao of Wei asked Tze-kung: How did Chung-ni (Chung secundus, Confucius) study?
2. Tze-kung said : Wan and Wu's system hadn't com- pletely collapsed, the men of solid talent conserved the great features (the great parts of it were rooted in their memory) and the minor items were rooted in the memories of the men without talents, no one was wholly without something of Wan and Wu's method, how could the big man help studying it, though without an ordinary teacher?
xxrrI
1. Shu-sun Wu-shu said to a high court officer : Tze- kung is superior to Chung-ni.
2. Tze-fu Ching-po told Tze-kung, Tze-kung said: By analogy with a house wall, mine is shoulder high, one can look over it at the house and family, and whalt is good in them.
3. The big man's wall is many times the height of an eight-footer, if you don't find the door and go in, you can't see the splendour of the feudal temple, or the hundred officers' riches.
4. But how few find the door, wasn't that big chap's remark perfectly suited to him?
XXIV
1. Shu-san Wu-shu spoke ill of Chung-ni. Tze-kung said : It's no use, you can't break him down. It's the other men that are " hillocks " [play on Confucius' familiar
131
? ? ? ? ? name Ch'iu "hillock"] and hummocks that one can walk up. Chung-ni, the sun, the moon you cannot walk up stairs to. Though a man wants to cut himself off, what harm does that do to the sun and moon, many people see them who cannot m. easure a meridian. [The pictogram is a meruure of the sun-ris@, rather than of capwcitY", as L. ]
xxv
1. Ch'an Tze-ch'in said to Tze-kung, You are over- doing this respectfulness, how is Chung-ni more talented than you are ?
2. Tze-kung said: The proper man can be known fron1 a single sentence and one sentence is enough to show what a man does not know. Can't neglect keeping the word aligned with the mind.
3. You can't reach the big man, just as you can't get to heaven by walking up stairs.
4. . If the big man were in charge of a state or clan, what 1s properly called establishment would be established the proper system would work, the traces would be hitched so that they would draw, energies would be harmonized. He would be splendid in life, lamented in death, how can one match him ?
BOOK TWENTY
I
1. Yao said: Attend! you Shun, heaven's calendar [sun under grain under cover] has now pulsed through in its count to take root in your personal strength, hang on to what it is all about, hand and foot (biceps and legs) if within the four seas there be dearth and exhaustion, tbc defining light of heaven [L. heaven's revenueJ will
come to perpetual end.
2. Shun gave the same sealed order to Yii. [T'ang,
as in the Shu IV, iii, 3. ]
3. Said : I, the little child Li (" Shoe") dare to use
the black victin1; dare clearly announce to the Whiteness above all Whiteness above all kings, to the Dynasty Overspreading; dare not pardon offences, nor let those who serve the spread cloth of heaven be overgrown; their report roots in the mind of the O'erspreading.
If in us, the emperor's person, be fault, it is not by the myriad regions, if the myriad regions have fault, it takes root from our person. [Cf. Wu, in the Shu V. iii. ]
4. Chao had a great conferring : honest men could be rich.
5. Although he had the Chao relatives, not a matter of someone else's manhood, if the hundred clans err, it is rooted in me the one man.
6. He kept watch over the balances (weights) and the measuring [ [ shd/ say taking the sun. L . / measures], he investigated the statutes and regulations [or better: the functioning of the regulations, how they worked, whether they worked. La Vie du Droit], he combed out the useless officials, and the government of the Four Coigns
went ahead.
7. He built up wasted states, restored broken succes-
sions, promoted men who had retired, and the people of the empire returned to good sense.
133
132
---------
? CONFUCIAN ANALECTS
-
? ? ? ? ? ? ? CONFUCIAN ANALECTS
8. What he put weight on was feeding the people,
mourning and offerings.
9. By magnanimity reached to everyone; by keeping his word got their trust; got through a lot of work by attention to detail and kept them happy by justice.
II
1. Tze-chang asked Kung-tze how one should carry
on government.
He said : Honour the five excellences and throw out
the four evils.
Tze-chang said: How do you define the five excellences? He said : The proper man [here, man-in-authority] is
considerate without being extravagant, energetic (or even
urging) without grumbling, desires without greed, is honourable without hauteur, and boldly protective without ferocity.
2. Tze-chang said: What do you mean by being
considerate not extravagant? He said : Cause the people
to profit by what he profits by (their cut of grain), isn't that being considerate without extravagance? When he picks out the right work for them, they work, who will grumble; desiring manhood and attaining it, is that greed? Whether he is dealing with many or few, with small matter or great, the proper man does not venture to be ehurly, is not that being honourable and not haughty? The proper man adjusts his robe and cap, honours what is clearly worthy of honour, [Occhio per la mente. If a strict styli. >t is distinguishing chien (4) 860 M and' shih (4) 5789, the former wd/ be eye-sight and the latter, I take it, mind-sight, intellectual clarity] with dignity so that others look up to him and even fear him, isn't that severity without ferocity?
3. Tze-chang said : How define the four evils? He said: Not to teach people and then put them to death is cruelty; not to warn people and then expect them to have
134
BOOK TWENTY
things finished perfectly, is called oppression. [L. admir- ably: to require suddenly the full tale of work without having given warning. ] To be dilatory (sloppy) in giving orders and exigent in expecting them carried out at the precise date is cheating.
6752. This tse (2-5) certainly cannot be trans- lated thief in oil eoonte. xts, it is an a. busive term, centre of meaning seems to be nearer to "cheat" though theft is centainly included. "Con game" with violence, any thieving trick.
As in giving to others, to come out and give in a stingy manner .
Thus L. , but if we are getting down to brass tacks, I should think the ch'u na: go out- insert, might. refer oto the familiar "kick-back," getting persorwl repayment from an official payment to another.
called having assistant-officers.
Unless it refers to kick-back or something
more than manner, seems hardly great enough
to be listed among the four hateful or e<vil things. 4809. o(+. 5). That is to say it wd/ seem to be stretching the 0(4-5) into a milder meaning than >t usually has in the Four Books. P. on appelle cela se comporter comme un collecteur d'impots.
III
l. He said : Not to know the decree [the sealed mouth. L. adds "of heaven," not :to recognize destiny] is to be without the means of being a proper man (the ancestral voice is incomplete).
2. Not to know the rites is to be without means to
construct.
3.
Nat to know words (the meaning of words) is to be without the fluid needful to understand men.
135
? ? ? ? ? BRIEF CONCORDANCE
Book Chapter 16, Tactics
II 2, No twisty thoughts. Government: II, 19; XII, 7; XII, 14; XIII, 1. Veracity: II, 22; IX, 24.
Flattery : II, 24, i.
}\_rrangement of sequence of the ODES: IX, 14. Men not horses : X, 12.
The Old Treasury: XI, 13.
VI, 11, cf/Agassiz.
VI, 12, The official.
