《八佾》 Passage 3.5

the Master said

• 子 the Master, an honorific title for Confucius
• 曰 said, spoke

the Yi and Di, non-Chinese frontier peoples regarded as barbarian tribes

• 夷 Yi, ancient eastern non-Chinese people regarded as barbarian
• 狄 Di, ancient northern non-Chinese people regarded as barbarian

Legge and Roberts render this evaluatively ('rude', 'uncultured') rather than as an ethnonym

not as good as, inferior to

• 之 subordinating particle marking the preceding phrase as topic
• 不 not
• 如 to be equal to, be as good as

The comparison is construed two ways. 包咸 and 皇侃 take the Xia states even without a ruler as superior to the barbarians with one (Slingerland, Roberts, Ames & Rosemont, Lau, Watson; 楊伯峻 follows). 程子 and 朱熹 take it as a lament that the barbarians at least have rulers while the Xia states do not (Legge, Chin). 之 nominalizes each clause as a term of the comparison and has no rendering of its own.

to have, possess

ruler, sovereign, prince

not as good as, inferior to

• 不 not
• 如 to be equal to, be as good as
• 之 subordinating particle marking the preceding phrase as topic
• 也 sentence-final particle marking assertion

之 nominalizes 'the various Xia's lacking a ruler' as the other term of the comparison, and 也 closes the sentence as an assertion; neither has a rendering of its own

the various Xia states, the Chinese realm (as opposed to the Yi and Di)

• 諸 the various, all the (collective plural marker)
• 夏 Xia, the ancient Chinese realm and civilization

to lack, be without

Read wú: 亡 stands for 無, to lack (包咸: 亡，無也; 經典釋文 音無). Peimin Ni alone reads it as to ignore or disregard, making the Xia states the ones at fault for abandoning their rulers.