Book 17: 《陽貨》 Yang Huo
《陽貨》 Passage 17.18
Legge Translation (1861)
The Master said: "I hate the manner in which purple takes away the luster of vermilion. I hate the way in which the songs of Zheng confound the music of the Ya. I hate those who with their sharp mouths overthrow kingdoms and families."Word by word
- 子曰 zǐ yuē
the Master said
- 子 the Master (honorific title for Confucius)
- 曰 said, spoke
- 惡 wù
to hate, detest, abhor
Read wù 'to hate, detest', not è 'evil, bad'; the same verb governs all three parallel clauses of this saying.
- 紫 zǐ
purple (color)
Purple was a fashionable but ritually unorthodox color, here seen as displacing vermilion, the color proper to Zhou ritual dress.
- 之…也 zhī … yě
nominalizing frame turning the clause into the object of 惡: '(the fact/way) that...'
- 之 subordinating particle marking the clause as object of 惡
- 也 final particle closing the nominalized clause
- 奪 duó
to usurp, supplant, take the place of
- 朱 zhū
vermilion, the ritually correct red
- 惡 wù
to hate, detest, abhor
- 鄭 zhèng
Zheng, name of a state
- 聲 shēng
sounds, music, tunes
- 之…也 zhī … yě
nominalizing frame turning the clause into the object of 惡: '(the fact/way) that...'
- 之 subordinating particle marking the clause as object of 惡
- 也 final particle closing the nominalized clause
- 亂 luàn
to throw into confusion, corrupt, subvert
- 雅樂 yǎ yuè
classical/elegant court music, the correct ritual music
- 雅 elegant, refined, correct, proper
- 樂 music
Legge and Watson both leave 雅 untranslated as "the Ya"; most others render it "classical" or "correct" music.
- 惡 wù
to hate, detest, abhor
- 利口 lì kǒu
sharp-tongued, glib, smooth-talking
- 利 sharp, keen (of speech)
- 口 mouth, tongue, speech
- 之…者 zhī … zhě
nominalizing particle: turns the clause into 'those who...', the agent-object of 惡
- 之 subordinating particle marking the subject of the following clause
- 者 nominalizing particle: those who, the one who
Here 者 nominalizes the clause as an agent ('those who...') rather than merely closing an assertion as 也 does in the first two clauses.
- 覆 fù
to overturn, topple, bring down, ruin
- 邦 bāng
state, feudal state, country
- 家 jiā
family, clan, aristocratic house
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