Book 13: 《子路》 Zi Lu
《子路》 Passage 13.21
Legge Translation (1861)
The Master said: "Since I cannot get men pursuing the due medium, to whom I might communicate my instructions, I must find the ardent and the cautiously-decided. The ardent will advance and lay hold of truth; the cautiously-decided will keep themselves from what is wrong."Word by word
- 子曰 zǐ yuē
the Master said
- 子 master, honorific title (here, Confucius)
- 曰 said, spoke
- 不得 bù dé
unable to find, fail to obtain
- 不 not
- 得 to get, succeed in finding
- 中行 zhōng xíng
the middle way, balanced conduct
- 中 middle, balanced, moderate
- 行 conduct, behavior
中行 denotes the Confucian standard of the mean; 狂 and 狷 below are the two temperamental extremes that fall short of it.
- 而與之 ér yǔ zhī
and associate with, keep company with (him)
- 而 conjunctive particle: and, and then
- 與 to associate with, keep company with
- 之 him, them (third-person object pronoun)
- 必也…乎 bì yě … hū
must surely be...!, forced-choice frame introducing a fallback
- 必 surely, necessarily, of necessity
- 也 pause particle after 必, setting the adverb off before the predicate: if anything, it must be
- 乎 exclamatory final particle
必也...乎 is a recurring Analects formula: 'if forced to settle for something, it would have to be...!'
- 狂 kuáng
ardent, boldly forward-pressing
- 狷 juàn
overly cautious, restrained
- 狂者 kuáng zhě
the ardent, those of unrestrained temperament
- 狂 the ardent, those of unrestrained temperament
- 者 nominalizing particle: one who, those who
- 進取 jìn qǔ
to advance boldly and press ahead, take initiative
- 進 to advance, press forward
- 取 to take hold of, achieve, seize
- 狷者 juàn zhě
the cautious, those of restrained temperament
- 狷 the cautious, those of restrained temperament
- 者 nominalizing particle: one who, those who
- 有所不為 yǒu suǒ bù wéi
to have things one refuses to do, exercise self-restraint
- 有 to have
- 所 nominalizing particle: that which, the thing that
- 不 not
- 為 to do, act
- 也 yě
final particle of assertion
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