Book 2: 《為政》 Wei Zheng (Governance)
《為政》 Passage 2.22
Legge Translation (1861)
The Master said: "I do not know how a man without truthfulness is to get on. How can a large carriage be made to go without the cross-bar for yoking the oxen to, or a small carriage without the arrangement for yoking the horses?"Word by word
- 子曰 zǐ yuē
the Master said
- 子 honorific title: the Master (referring to Confucius)
- 曰 said, spoke
- 人 rén
a person, someone
- 而 ér
conditional connective: if, when
Roberts and Chin make the conditional sense of 而 explicit.
- 無 wú
to lack, be without
- 信 xìn
trustworthiness, good faith
Ames & Rosemont and Lau narrow 信 to one's word/promise rather than general trustworthy character.
- 不知…也 bù zhī … yě
rhetorical hedge: do not know, cannot tell whether
- 不 not
- 知 to know, to be certain, to tell
- 也 final particle marking assertion
也 marks the clause as a hedged assertion.
- 其 qí
resumptive pronoun: he, it (referring to the person just mentioned)
- 可 kě
acceptable, viable, able to get by
- 大車 dà chē
large cart, ox-drawn cart
- 大 big, large
- 車 cart, vehicle, carriage
in Zhou usage 大車 denotes the heavy ox-drawn dray, contrasted with the lighter horse-drawn 小車.
- 無 wú
to lack, be without, have no
- 輗 ní
linchpin joining the yoke-bar to a large (ox-drawn) cart's pole
- 小車 xiǎo chē
small cart, horse-drawn carriage
- 小 small
- 車 cart, vehicle, carriage
- 無 wú
to lack, be without, have no
- 軏 yuè
linchpin joining the collar-bar to a small (horse-drawn) cart's pole
- 其…哉 qí … zāi
rhetorical question frame: how could...!? (modal marker of impossibility)
- 其 rhetorical intensifying particle, reinforcing the question
- 哉 exclamatory/interrogative final particle
- 何以 hé yǐ
interrogative: how, by what means
- 何 what, how
- 以 by means of, by which
- 行 xíng
to go, move, function (of a vehicle)
- 之 zhī
third-person object pronoun: it, them (the cart(s))
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