《鄉黨》 Passage 10.27

a look on the face, the unfriendly expression at which the bird takes flight

馬融 (in 何晏), 朱熹 and 楊伯峻 read 色 as a person's countenance: the bird sees an unfriendly look and flies off (見顏色不善則去之), the construal of Legge, Watson and Roberts; Slingerland, Peimin Ni, Ames & Rosemont, Lau and Chin generalise it to a startling cue. 朱熹 judges the whole passage textually defective (必有闕文).

to rise up, take flight (a startled reaction)

• 斯 then, at once; correlative adverb marking immediate sequence
• 舉 to rise up, take flight

斯 (then, at once) is a correlative adverb marking immediate sequence; only Legge's 'instantly' distinctly reflects it, so evidence here is carried mainly by the verb 舉.

final particle marking completed action

to soar, circle, wheel in flight

temporal connector: and then, only after that

• 而 conjunctive particle: and, and then
• 後 after, afterward; marks a following point in time

to alight, land, settle (of a bird)

to say, speak (introduces a direct quotation)

Roberts alone reads this as introducing a quotation from the Odes ('He quoted from an ode'), a minority interpretation of what follows.

mountain bridge, bridge over a hill stream (as a place)

• 山 mountain, hill
• 梁 bridge, especially over a mountain stream

Roberts relocates the mountain setting to the passage's opening ('On foot by a hill') and here renders only 'the wooden bridge', dropping the mountain word at this position.

hen pheasant, female pheasant

• 雌 female (modifying an animal)
• 雉 pheasant

Slingerland leaves the sex unspecified ('pheasant'); Roberts pluralizes to 'Hens', consistent with rendering the scene as a group of pheasants rather than one.

how timely!, how fitting the moment is (exclamation)

• 時 timely, opportune; exclamatory: how fitting the moment is
• 哉 exclamatory final particle: how...!

a celebrated crux: most translators take 時哉 as praising the timeliness of the moment/season itself, but Lau extends it to praise the timeliness of the bird's action ('her action is'), and Roberts's 'timing' likewise leans toward judging a deed rather than a season.

how timely!, how fitting the moment is (exclamation)

• 時 timely, opportune; exclamatory: how fitting the moment is
• 哉 exclamatory final particle: how...!

the second exclamation, repeating the first for emphasis; see the first 時哉 for the divergence between reading the moment or the action as timely.

Zilu (proper name, disciple of Confucius)

• 子 prefix of a courtesy name, as in 子路 and 子貢; not the title Master
• 路 second syllable of the proper name Zilu

to salute, pay respects with a gesture (often read as 拱, cupping the hands)

何晏 and 邢昺 read 共 as 供, to prepare and serve the bird as food, which makes Confucius the subject of 三嗅; 朱熹 allows 拱, to salute with clasped hands, only on the readings of 嗅 as 狊 or 戛, and leaves the sentence as defective (必有闕文).

it, him, referring to the pheasant

Slingerland, Ames & Rosemont, and Lau replace the pronoun with a full noun phrase ('the bird'), so no distinct pronoun word appears in their renderings.

three, three times

to flap the wings (read as 狊, a graphic variant, rather than 'smell')

朱熹 records three readings and calls the text defective (必有闕文): 邢昺's, in which 子路 serves the pheasant as a dish and it is Confucius who sniffs it three times and rises (Legge, Watson); 晁說之's 石經 variant 戛, the bird cries out (Slingerland); and 劉聘君's emendation to 狊, it spreads its wings (Peimin Ni, Ames & Rosemont, Lau, Chin). Roberts's 'eyed him' has no commentarial basis.

conjunctive particle: and, and then

to rise up, take flight, fly away