Book 12: 《顏淵》 Yan Yuan
《顏淵》 Passage 12.13
子曰：「聽訟，吾猶人也，必也使無訟乎！」
Legge Translation (1861)
The Master said: "In hearing litigations, I am like any other body. What is necessary, however, is to cause the people to have no litigations."Word by word
- 子曰 zǐ yuē
the Master said
- 子 Master, honorific title for Confucius
- 曰 said, spoke
- 聽訟 tīng sòng
to hear and adjudicate legal cases, hear litigation
- 聽 to hear and decide, adjudicate (a legal case)
- 訟 litigation, lawsuit, legal dispute
- 吾 wú
I, me
- 猶 yóu
to be like, no different from, on a par with
- 人 rén
other people, anyone else
- 也 yě
final particle of assertion
- 必也 bì yě
what is truly necessary, what must be done
- 必 necessarily, surely — marking what is truly essential
- 也 particle marking topic and emphasis: 'what is truly...'
必...也 topicalizes and intensifies 必, framing what follows as the one thing truly needed.
- 使 shǐ
to cause, bring about, make happen
- 無 wú
to lack, be without, have none
- 訟 sòng
litigation, lawsuit, legal dispute
- 乎 hū
exclamatory final particle
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