Book 4: 《里仁》 Li Ren (Dwelling in Ren)
《里仁》 Passage 4.13
Legge Translation (1861)
The Master said: "If a prince is able to govern his kingdom with the complaisance proper to the rules of propriety, what difficulty will he have? If he cannot govern it with that complaisance, what has he to do with the rules of propriety?"Word by word
- 子曰 zǐ yuē
the Master said
- 子 master, here referring to Confucius
- 曰 to say, said
- 能 néng
to be able to, can
- 以 yǐ
instrumental particle: by means of, using
- 禮讓 lǐ ràng
ritual propriety and deference
- 禮 ritual propriety, the rites
- 讓 deference, yielding
- 為國 wéi guó
to govern a state, to administer a state
- 為 to govern, to administer
- 國 state, country
- 乎 hū
marks the clause as a hypothetical question: if
乎 marks this clause as a polar question; paired with the unmarked negative clause that follows, most translators render the pair idiomatically as 'if...if not...'.
- 何有 hé yǒu
rhetorical idiom: what difficulty could there be?
- 何 what, how much (rhetorical: what difficulty could there be)
- 有 to have, to exist, here idiomatically 'is there'
何有 is elliptical for 何難之有, 'what difficulty would there be' — a stock idiom of rhetorical dismissal used repeatedly in the Analects.
- 不能 bù néng
not able to, unable to
- 不 not
- 能 to be able to, can
- 以 yǐ
instrumental particle: by means of, using
- 禮讓 lǐ ràng
ritual propriety and deference
- 禮 ritual propriety, the rites
- 讓 deference, yielding
- 為國 wéi guó
to govern a state, to administer a state
- 為 to govern, to administer
- 國 state, country
- 如…何 rú … hé
rhetorical idiom: what is to be done about..., of what use is...
- 如 introduces a rhetorical question: what is to be done about
- 何 what, completing the rhetorical question: of what use is it
如…何 is a fixed frame asking what is to be done with X, how one is to deal with X; here rhetorically, what use is ritual to him (朱熹: 其禮文雖具，亦且無如之何矣).
- 禮 lǐ
ritual, ritual propriety, the rites
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