Book 10: 《鄉黨》 Xiang Dang (In the Village)
《鄉黨》 Passage 10.1
Legge Translation (1861)
Confucius, in his village, looked simple and sincere, and as if he were not able to speak.When he was in the prince's ancestorial temple, or in the court, he spoke minutely on every point, but cautiously.
Word by word
- 孔子 kǒng zǐ
Confucius, Master Kong
- 孔 surname: Kong
- 子 honorific suffix: Master, added after a surname
- 於 yú
preposition marking location: in, at
- 鄉黨 xiāng dǎng
home village, local community
- 鄉 village, home community
- 黨 local community, township
- 恂恂 xún xún
sincere, guileless, unassuming demeanor
- 恂 sincere, guileless, unassuming (reduplicated for emphasis)
- 恂 sincere, guileless, unassuming (reduplicated for emphasis)
Reduplicated adjective; translators render the resulting quality with widely different English adjectives, all describing deferential, unaffected bearing.
- 如 rú
predicate-forming suffix attached to a descriptive adjective: seemed, appeared to be
- 也 yě
final particle marking a descriptive clause
- 似 sì
as if, it seemed that
- 不能 bù néng
unable to, could not
- 不 not
- 能 to be able to, can
- 言 yán
to speak
- 者 zhě
nominalizing particle: one who
- 其 qí
he, his (referring to Confucius)
- 在 zài
to be at, in (a place)
- 宗廟 zōng miào
ancestral temple
- 宗 ancestral (modifying 廟, temple)
- 廟 temple, shrine
- 朝廷 cháo tíng
court, royal court
- 朝 court, royal court (paired with 廷)
- 廷 court, courtyard of government
- 便便 pián pián
fluent, eloquent in speech
- 便 fluent, eloquent (reduplicated to describe manner of speech)
- 便 fluent, eloquent (reduplicated to describe manner of speech)
Read pián, not biàn (朱熹: 便，旁連反). 鄭玄 (in 何晏) and 朱熹 gloss 便便 as 辯, articulate and fluent; Legge's 'minutely on every point' reflects the older sense of thoroughness rather than mere fluency.
- 言 yán
to speak
- 唯…爾 wéi … ěr
restrictive frame: only, merely, nothing more than
- 唯 only, merely
- 爾 restrictive final particle: that is all, merely
唯 ('only') and the final particle 爾 ('that is all') together mark his caution as the sole quality of his speech; content already covered by 謹 is not repeated here.
- 謹 jǐn
cautious, circumspect
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