Book 13: 《子路》 Zi Lu
《子路》 Passage 13.29
Legge Translation (1861)
The Master said: "Let a good man teach the people seven years, and they may then likewise be employed in war."Word by word
- 子曰 zǐ yuē
the Master said
- 子 the Master, i.e. Confucius — respectful title
- 曰 said, spoke — introduces reported speech
- 善人 shàn rén
good, virtuous person
- 善 good, virtuous — Roberts alone renders it 'capable'; the others take it as morally good
- 人 person, man
- 教 jiào
to teach, instruct, train
- 民 mín
the people, the common people
- 七 qī
seven
- 年 nián
year, years
- 亦 yì
adverb marking the consequence of a condition: then, in that case
亦 here marks the apodosis of the condition, 'then' (楊伯峻 也就; cf. 13.11), rather than 'also'; Legge and Peimin Ni render it additively as 'likewise', Slingerland as 'even', Roberts as 'generally speaking', and Ames & Rosemont, Lau, Watson and Chin let the modal carry it.
- 可以 kě yǐ
can, may, be capable of
- 可 can, may — expressing possibility or permission
- 以 modal complement forming 可以, can, be able to
- 即戎 jí róng
take up arms, engage in military service
- 即 to approach, go directly to, take up
- 戎 arms, weapons, military affairs, warfare
- 矣 yǐ
final particle of assertion, anticipated state
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