Book 13: 《子路》 Zi Lu
《子路》 Passage 13.26
Legge Translation (1861)
The Master said: "The superior man has a dignified ease without pride. The mean man has pride without a dignified ease."Word by word
- 子曰 zǐ yuē
the Master said
- 子 Master, teacher (title used for Confucius)
- 曰 said, spoke
- 君子 jūn zǐ
gentleman, exemplary person
- 君 lord, ruler; 君子 is literally a lord's son
- 子 son; 君子 is literally a lord's son, one of the ruling class, which the Analects makes a term of character
Roberts renders it 'true prince', emphasizing rank; most translators emphasize character over status.
- 泰 tài
dignified ease, composure
泰 denotes an inner largeness or composure that shows outwardly as ease rather than strain.
- 而 ér
contrastive conjunction: but, yet
Legge, Peimin Ni, Roberts, and Lau fuse 而不 into a single 'without', combining the contrast with the negation that follows.
- 不 bù
not, never
- 驕 jiāo
arrogant, haughty, proud
- 小人 xiǎo rén
petty person, small-minded individual
- 小 small; petty, of little moral stature
- 人 person, man
- 驕 jiāo
arrogant, haughty, proud
- 而 ér
contrastive conjunction: but, yet
- 不 bù
not, never
- 泰 tài
dignified ease, composure
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