Book 5: 《公冶長》 Gong Ye Chang
《公冶長》 Passage 5.11
Legge Translation (1861)
The Master said: "I have not seen a firm and unbending man."Some one replied: "There is Shen Cheng."
"Cheng," said the Master, "is under the influence of his passions; how can he be pronounced firm and unbending?"
Word by word
- 子曰 zǐ yuē
the Master said
- 子 the Master, i.e. Confucius
- 曰 said, spoke
- 吾 wú
I, me
- 未 wèi
not yet, not up to now
- 見 jiàn
to see, meet, encounter
- 剛 gāng
unyielding, firm, resolute
- 者 zhě
nominalizing particle: one who, a person who
- 或 huò
someone, a certain person
- 對曰 duì yuē
replied, answered
- 對 in reply, in response
- 曰 said, spoke
- 申棖 shēn chéng
Shen Cheng, personal name of a disciple of Confucius
- 申 Shen, a Chinese surname
- 棖 Cheng, a given name
Identified by traditional commentators as a disciple of Confucius; little else is known of him.
- 子曰 zǐ yuē
the Master said
- 子 the Master, i.e. Confucius
- 曰 said, spoke
- 棖 chéng
Cheng, referring to Shen Cheng by his given name
- 也 yě
topic-marking final particle: marks the preceding word as subject
- 慾 yù
desires, cravings, appetites
Most translators render this as neutral abundance ('full of desires'), but Ames & Rosemont and Chin read it as disqualifying excess ('too acquisitive'), which is the crux of the Master's verdict.
- 焉 yān
how? (rhetorical interrogative, expecting the answer 'not at all')
- 得 dé
can, to be able
得's root sense is 'to attain, get'; here it functions modally as 'to be able', so 焉得剛 reads 'how could he be counted as gang?'
- 剛 gāng
unyielding, firm, resolute
This is the verdict question: the Master denies Cheng the very quality just proposed for him, on the grounds that desire and true resolve are incompatible.
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