Book 12: 《顏淵》 Yan Yuan
《顏淵》 Passage 12.3
Legge Translation (1861)
Sima Niu asked about perfect virtue. The Master said: "The man of perfect virtue is cautious and slow in his speech." "Cautious and slow in his speech!" said Niu;— "is this what is meant by perfect virtue?" The Master said: "When a man feels the difficulty of doing, can he be other than cautious and slow in speaking?"Word by word
- 司馬牛 sī mǎ niú
Sima Niu, a disciple of Confucius (courtesy name Ziniu; given name Geng)
- 司 surname element: Sima (a compound surname)
- 馬 surname element: Sima (a compound surname)
- 牛 Niu, courtesy-name element in 司馬牛; traditionally identified as Sima Geng (司馬耕), given name 耕
- 問 wèn
to ask about, inquire about
- 仁 rén
benevolence, humaneness
Translators split between an affective reading (benevolence, Goodness, humaneness) and Ames & Rosemont's process-philosophical 'authoritative conduct.'
- 子曰 zǐ yuē
the Master said
- 子 the Master, Confucius
- 曰 said
- 仁者 rén zhě
the ren person, one who is benevolent/Good (nominalized construction)
- 仁 ren, benevolence; the virtue attributed to the person described
- 者 nominalizing particle: one who, the person who
- 其 qí
his, referring to the ren person
- 言 yán
speech, to speak
- 也 yě
particle marking a pause after a topicalized subject clause
- 訒 rèn
hesitant, reluctant, slow to speak
訒 is a rare character; each translator reaches for a different near-synonym for verbal reticence (cautious, hesitant, chary, reserved, slow, loath, reluctant), so no two translations agree on wording.
- 曰 yuē
said
- 其 qí
his, referring to the ren person
- 言 yán
speech, to speak
- 也 yě
particle marking a pause after a topicalized subject clause
- 訒 rèn
hesitant, reluctant, slow to speak
- 斯 sī
this, then, in that case
- 謂 wèi
to call, to term, to mean
- 之 zhī
object pronoun: it, referring to the conduct just described
English uses a cleft construction ('is that what it means to be...') whose dummy 'it' belongs to the copula, not this object pronoun; the pronoun itself goes unworded.
- 仁 rén
benevolence, humaneness
- 已乎 yǐ hū
merely, just, only (forming a truncated tag question: is that all?)
- 已 merely, just, only; limiting adverb
- 乎 interrogative final particle
已乎 abbreviates a longer tag question ('is that all there is to it?').
- 子曰 zǐ yuē
the Master said
- 子 the Master, Confucius
- 曰 said
- 為 wéi
to do, to act, to carry out, to practice
- 之 zhī
object pronoun: it, referring to practicing ren
- 難 nán
difficult, hard
- 言 yán
speech, to speak
- 之 zhī
object pronoun: it, referring to acting or speaking of ren
- 得無…乎 dé wú … hū
rhetorical frame: how can (one) not..., can it be that... not...?
- 得 auxiliary verb: can, to be able to
- 無 not; negative particle
- 乎 interrogative final particle
得無…乎 is a classical rhetorical frame expecting the answer 'no' — literally 'can it be that (one) is not...?'; English renders the same rhetorical force as a 'how can... not' question.
- 訒 rèn
hesitant, reluctant, slow to speak
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