《陽貨》 Passage 17.10

Confucius, the Master

said to, addressed

• 謂 to say to, address (someone)
• 曰 said, spoke (introduces a direct quotation)

謂 (address) and 曰 (say) jointly form the standard frame introducing direct speech; all eight translators render the pair as a single verb phrase.

Boyu, courtesy name of Confucius's son Kong Li

• 伯 eldest (component of the name Boyu, Confucius's son)
• 魚 fish (component of the name Boyu, Confucius's son)

you (second-person pronoun)

to work at, study, master, apply oneself to

Zhounan, 'Odes of the South of Zhou' (opening section of the Book of Odes)

• 周 Zhou (dynasty name, first element of the title Zhounan)
• 南 south (second element of the title Zhounan, 'South of Zhou')

Shaonan, 'Odes of the South of Shao' (second opening section of the Book of Odes)

• 召 Shao (place name, first element of the title Shaonan)
• 南 south (second element of the title Shaonan, 'South of Shao')

召 is read shào, the name of the Shao domain (朱熹: 召，音邵), not zhào, to summon; the same at [31,32].

perfective + interrogative particles: completed-action question marker

• 矣 perfective particle marking a completed or realized action
• 乎 interrogative final particle

a person, someone, a man

conditional particle: if

not

to work at, study, master, apply oneself to

Zhounan, 'Odes of the South of Zhou' (opening section of the Book of Odes)

• 周 Zhou (dynasty name, first element of the title Zhounan)
• 南 south (second element of the title Zhounan, 'South of Zhou')

Shaonan, 'Odes of the South of Shao' (second opening section of the Book of Odes)

• 召 Shao (place name, first element of the title Shaonan)
• 南 south (second element of the title Shaonan, 'South of Shao')

he, they (referring back to the person just described)

to be like, similar to

correctly, directly, straight-on

wall

face (of a person)

conjunctive particle: and, linking two sequential actions

Translators uniformly render this with a participial 'with' phrase ('stands with his face to the wall') rather than an explicit 'and', so no rendering is quoted.

to stand

sentence-final particles forming a rhetorical question: is it not so?

• 也 final particle paired with the following 與/哉 in a question
• 與 interrogative final particle expressing a rhetorical question

也與 (也歟) marks a rhetorical question expecting agreement; Legge and Slingerland render it as an explicit tag question, Peimin Ni folds its force into 'wouldn't', and the rest end the sentence with a period, dropping the marker.