Book 13: 《子路》 Zi Lu
《子路》 Passage 13.11
Legge Translation (1861)
The Master said: "'If good men were to govern a country in succession for a hundred years, they would be able to transform the violently bad, and dispense with capital punishments.' True indeed is this saying!"Word by word
- 子曰 zǐ yuē
the Master said
- 子 Master, honorific title for Confucius
- 曰 said, spoke
- 善人 shàn rén
good, virtuous people
- 善 good, virtuous, capable
- 人 person, people
Ames & Rosemont renders shan as 'truly efficacious,' reflecting a distinct interpretive reading of the term.
- 為邦 wéi bāng
to govern a state, administer a country
- 為 to govern, to administer
- 邦 state, country
- 百年 bǎi nián
a hundred years, a century
- 百 hundred
- 年 year
- 亦 yì
adverb marking the consequence of a condition: then, in that case
the other translators let the modal 可以 carry the sense unaided.
- 可以 kě yǐ
can, be able to
- 可 can, to be able to
- 以 particle completing the auxiliary meaning 'can, be able to'
- 勝殘 shèng cán
to overcome cruelty, prevail over violence
- 勝 to overcome, prevail over
- 殘 cruelty, oppression; the cruel
- 去殺 qù shā
do away with killing
- 去 to remove, do away with
- 殺 killing, execution
- 矣 yǐ
final particle marking assertion of a settled, certain outcome
- 誠哉 chéng zāi
truly, how true...! (exclamatory intensifier)
- 誠 truly, sincerely; genuine
- 哉 exclamatory final particle: how...!, indeed!
- 是 shì
demonstrative pronoun: this, these, those
- 言 yán
words, saying, statement
- 也 yě
final particle marking the subject of an inverted exclamatory clause
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