Book 3: 《八佾》 Ba Yi (Eight Rows)
《八佾》 Passage 3.15
Legge Translation (1861)
The Master, when he entered the grand temple, asked about everything. Some one said: "Who will say that the son of the man of Zou knows the rules of propriety! He has entered the grand temple and asks about everything."The Master heard the remark, and said: "This is a rule of propriety."
Word by word
- 子 zǐ
the Master, honorific title for Confucius
- 入 rù
to enter, go into
- 大廟 tài miào
the Grand Temple, the ancestral temple of the Duke of Zhou in Lu
- 大 great, grand (describing the ancestral temple)
- 廟 ancestral temple, shrine
大 is read tài here, as 太 (經典釋文 大音泰).
- 每事問 měi shì wèn
to ask about everything, inquire into every particular
- 每 every, each
- 事 matter, affair, particular thing
- 問 to ask, inquire about
- 或曰 huò yuē
someone said, a certain person remarked
- 或 someone, some person
- 曰 said, spoke
- 孰 shú
who, which one (interrogative pronoun)
- 謂…乎 wèi … hū
rhetorical frame: [who] claims/asserts that...?, casting the attributed claim as doubtful
- 謂 to say, claim, assert
- 乎 interrogative final particle
- 鄹人 zōu rén
the man from Zou, a minor town: refers to Confucius's father, invoked to belittle Confucius's origins
- 鄹 Zou, a minor town associated with Confucius's father
- 人 person, man
- 之 zhī
possessive/genitive particle: 's, of
- 子 zǐ
son, child (here: Confucius, identified via his father's origin)
- 知 zhī
to know, understand, be versed in
- 禮 lǐ
ritual, the rites, prescribed forms of propriety
- 入 rù
to enter, go into
- 大廟 tài miào
the Grand Ancestral Temple
- 大 great, grand (describing the ancestral temple)
- 廟 ancestral temple, shrine
- 每事問 měi shì wèn
to ask about everything, inquire into every particular
- 每 every, each
- 事 matter, affair, particular thing
- 問 to ask, inquire about
- 子 zǐ
the Master, honorific title for Confucius
- 聞 wén
to hear, learn of, be informed of
- 之 zhī
it, this (referring to the preceding remark)
- 曰 yuē
said, spoke
- 是 shì
demonstrative pronoun: this, this act (referring to the practice of asking about everything)
Read two ways: sincerely, as affirming that painstaking inquiry is itself the substance of li; or pointedly, as turning the critic's jibe back on itself ('yes, this very asking is ritual').
- 禮 lǐ
ritual, the rites, prescribed forms of propriety
- 也 yě
final particle of strong affirmation: indeed, precisely, in itself
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