Book 3: 《八佾》 Ba Yi (Eight Rows)
《八佾》 Passage 3.14
Legge Translation (1861)
The Master said: "Zhou had the advantage of viewing the two past dynasties. How complete and elegant are its regulations! I follow Zhou."Word by word
- 子曰 zǐ yuē
the Master said
- 子 the Master, honorific title for Confucius
- 曰 said, spoke (introduces a quotation)
- 周 zhōu
the Zhou (dynasty)
- 監於 jiàn yú
to survey, examine, look upon
- 監 to look upon, survey, examine (an earlier era)
- 於 preposition marking the object of a verb: at, upon
Read jiàn: 監 (the graph behind 鑑, a mirror) here means to look to the past as a model (朱熹: 監，視也), not jiān, to oversee.
- 二代 èr dài
the two preceding dynasties (Xia and Shang)
- 二 two
- 代 generation, era, dynasty
Ames & Rosemont names the two dynasties explicitly as Xia and Shang rather than rendering 二代 literally as 'two generations'.
- 郁郁 yù yù
richly ornamented, resplendent, magnificent
- 郁 richly ornamented, splendid
- 郁 richly ornamented, splendid
reduplicated adjective intensifying admiration for the Zhou's cultural refinement.
- 乎…哉 hū … zāi
exclamatory frame: how...!, marks admiring exclamation
- 乎 exclamatory final particle: how...!
- 哉 final exclamatory particle: how...!
- 文 wén
culture, cultural refinement, civil institutions
Legge and Watson render 文 as 'regulations'/'ways' (its institutions and customs) rather than abstract 'culture'; Roberts as 'grand design'.
- 吾 wú
I, me (first-person pronoun)
- 從 cóng
to follow, to follow the example of
Roberts and Lau paraphrase 從 as identifying with/being partisan of the Zhou rather than literally 'follow'.
- 周 zhōu
the Zhou (dynasty)
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