Book 11: 《先進》 Xian Jin (Former Eras)
《先進》 Passage 11.23
Legge Translation (1861)
The Master was put in fear in Kuang and Yan Yuan fell behind. The Master, on his rejoining him, said: "I thought you had died." Hui replied: "While you were alive, how should I presume to die?"Word by word
- 子 zǐ
the Master, Confucius
- 畏 wèi
to be endangered, threatened, put at risk of death
Traditionally understood as referring to the Kuang incident where Confucius was besieged, mistaken for a hated rival; translators render the sense as 'surrounded', 'besieged', or 'threatened' rather than literally 'feared'.
- 於 yú
locative preposition: in, at
- 匡 kuāng
Kuang, a place name
- 顏淵 yán yuān
Yan Yuan / Yan Hui, name of Confucius's disciple
- 顏 Yan, surname of the disciple Yan Hui
- 淵 Yuan, courtesy-name element in 顏淵; Yan Hui's given name is 回, his courtesy name 子淵
- 後 hòu
to fall behind, arrive late
- 子曰 zǐ yuē
the Master said
- 子 the Master, Confucius
- 曰 said
- 吾 wú
I, me
- 以 yǐ
to consider, think, take to be
Introduces the 以...為 construction, 'to consider X to be Y'.
- 女 rǔ
you (second-person pronoun)
女 here is the second-person pronoun, read rǔ, the same word as 汝; it does not mean 'woman'.
- 為死 wéi sǐ
to be dead, to have died
- 為 to be, to become
- 死 dead, to have died
- 矣 yǐ
final particle marking a completed or realized state
- 曰 yuē
said, replied
- 子 zǐ
you, Master (honorific second-person address)
- 在 zài
to be alive, to be present
- 回 huí
Hui, Yan Hui's given name, used in self-reference in place of 'I'
Yan Hui refers to himself by his given name rather than a first-person pronoun, a convention of polite self-reference; all translators normalize this to 'I'.
- 何 hé
interrogative adverb: how
- 敢 gǎn
to dare
- 死 sǐ
to die
A text file for Anki 2.1.55 or later: File → Import. The cards go to the deck “Analects”, tagged by passage, and importing again updates them instead of adding copies.
Discussion
No one has started on this passage yet.
Start the discussion in r/analects