Book 15: 《衛靈公》 Wei Ling Gong (Duke Ling of Wey)
《衛靈公》 Passage 15.31
Legge Translation (1861)
The Master said: "I have been the whole day without eating, and the whole night without sleeping:— occupied with thinking. It was of no use. The better plan is to learn."Word by word
- 子曰 zǐ yuē
the Master said
- 子 the Master (Confucius), honorific title
- 曰 said
- 吾 wú
I, me (first person pronoun)
- 嘗 cháng
once, on one occasion (marking a past experience)
- 終日 zhōng rì
the whole day, all day long
- 終 entire, the whole (of a period of time)
- 日 day
- 不 bù
not (negates the following verb)
- 食 shí
to eat
Roberts renders 不食 together as the single verb 'fasting', folding the negation into the verb.
- 終夜 zhōng yè
the whole night, all night long
- 終 entire, the whole (of a period of time)
- 夜 night
- 不 bù
not (negates the following verb)
- 寢 qǐn
to sleep, go to bed
Roberts renders 終夜不寢 together as 'staying awake all night', a positively-phrased paraphrase.
- 以思 yǐ sī
to think it over, engage in reflection
- 以 in order to, so as to (purpose coverb)
- 思 to think, ponder, reflect
以 marks purpose ('so as to') joined with 思 the pair means 'in order to think it over'. Watson alone makes the purpose sense explicit.
- 無益 wú yì
of no use, no benefit gained
- 無 there is no, to lack, without
- 益 benefit, profit, use
- 不如 bù rú
better than, preferable to (lit. not as good as)
- 不 not
- 如 to be equal to, as good as (in comparison)
- 學 xué
to study, learn
- 也 yě
final particle of assertion
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