Book 14: 《憲問》 Xian Wen (Xian Asked)
《憲問》 Passage 14.38
Legge Translation (1861)
Zilu happening to pass the night in Shimen, the gate-keeper said to him, "Whom do you come from?" Zilu said: "From Mr. Kong." "It is he, — is it not?" — said the other, "who knows the impracticable nature of the times and yet will be doing in them."Word by word
- 子路 zǐ lù
Zilu, disciple of Confucius (Zhong You)
- 子 prefix of a courtesy name, as in 子路 and 子貢; not the title Master
- 路 component of the disciple's name Zilu
- 宿 sù
to stay overnight, lodge for the night
- 於 yú
locative preposition: at, in
- 石門 shí mén
Stone Gate, a gate of the Lu capital
- 石 stone (in the place name Stone Gate)
- 門 gate (in the place name Stone Gate)
Legge and Peimin Ni transliterate the name as Shimen; the others translate it as Stone Gate.
- 晨門 chén mén
the morning gatekeeper, official who opened the city gate at dawn
- 晨 morning, early morning
- 門 gate; by extension, gatekeeper
Legge, Roberts, Lau, Watson, and Chin drop 晨 ('morning') and render only 'gatekeeper/gateman'.
- 曰 yuē
said, asked (introduces direct speech)
- 奚自 xī zì
where have you come from?, interrogative construction (奚 'where' fronted as object of 自 'from')
- 奚 where? (interrogative pronoun)
- 自 from
Legge and Roberts read 奚 as 'whom', treating the question as about a person rather than a place.
- 子路 zǐ lù
Zilu, disciple of Confucius (Zhong You)
- 子 prefix of a courtesy name, as in 子路 and 子貢; not the title Master
- 路 component of the disciple's name Zilu
- 曰 yuē
said, replied, answered
- 自 zì
from
- 孔氏 kǒng shì
the Kong family, i.e. Confucius's household
- 孔 Kong, surname of Confucius
- 氏 clan, family name; suffix marking a lineage or surname
- 曰 yuē
said, asked (introduces direct speech)
Slingerland, Peimin Ni, Lau, and Chin present the gatekeeper's second question with no speech tag at all.
- 是 shì
this, that (demonstrative pronoun, referring to Confucius)
Combined with subject-auxiliary inversion this yields 'Is he'/'Isn't he'/'Is that', or Roberts's 'You mean'; Watson omits it and marks the question with punctuation alone.
- 知 zhī
to know, be aware of
- 其不可 qí bù kě
it is impossible, cannot be done, hopeless
- 其 it, that (referring to the undertaking)
- 不 not
- 可 acceptable, able to be done, possible
Peimin Ni and Ames & Rosemont keep a separate pronoun 'it' for 其; the rest fuse it into the predicate through relative-clause restructuring ('what he does', 'the realization of which').
- 而 ér
and yet, but (adversative conjunction)
- 為 wéi
to do, undertake, keep trying at
- 之 zhī
object pronoun: it, them — what he knows cannot be done
- 者 zhě
nominalizing particle: the one who, he who
- 與 yú
interrogative final particle
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