Book 6: 《雍也》 Yong Ye (As for Yong)
《雍也》 Passage 6.22
Legge Translation (1861)
Fan Chi asked what constituted wisdom. The Master said: "To give one's self earnestly to the duties due to men, and, while respecting spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom."He asked about perfect virtue. The Master said: "The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business, and success only a subsequent consideration; — this may be called perfect virtue."
Word by word
- 樊遲 fán chí
Fan Chi, a disciple of Confucius
- 樊 surname Fan
- 遲 Chi, courtesy-name element in 樊遲, the courtesy name of Fan Xu (樊須); his given name is 須
- 問 wèn
to ask about
- 知 zhì
wisdom, understanding
知 is read here in the sense of 智 (wisdom), not the verb 'to know'.
- 子曰 zǐ yuē
the Master said
- 子 master, teacher (i.e. Confucius)
- 曰 to say, said
- 務 wù
to work at, strive for, devote oneself to
- 民 mín
the common people
- 之 zhī
genitive particle marking possessive/attributive relation: 's, for
- 義 yì
what is right, proper conduct, righteousness
- 敬 jìng
to respect, show reverence to
- 鬼神 guǐ shén
ghosts and spirits, supernatural beings
- 鬼 ghost, spirit of the dead
- 神 spirit, deity
- 而 ér
contrastive conjunction: while, and yet, but
- 遠 yuǎn
to keep at a distance, distance oneself from
- 之 zhī
object pronoun: them (referring to the ghosts and spirits)
Roberts and Lau reorder the clause so the pronoun surfaces attached to the respect clause instead.
- 可謂 kě wèi
can be called, may be said to be
- 可 can, may be
- 謂 to call, term
- 知 zhì
wisdom, understanding
知 is read here in the sense of 智 (wisdom), not the verb 'to know'.
- 矣 yǐ
final particle of assertion, marking completion of a judgment
矣 itself has no independent English counterpart here.
- 問 wèn
to ask about
- 仁 rén
benevolence, humaneness
- 曰 yuē
to say, said
- 仁者 rén zhě
the humane person, one who is humane
- 仁 humane, benevolent
- 者 nominalizing particle: one who, the one who
- 先 xiān
to put first, prioritize
- 難 nán
difficulty, hardship, hard task
- 而 ér
coordinating conjunction: and
- 後 hòu
to put after, leave until later
- 獲 huò
reward, gain, benefit obtained
- 可謂 kě wèi
can be called, may be said to be
- 可 can, may be
- 謂 to call, term
- 仁 rén
benevolence, humaneness
- 矣 yǐ
final particle of assertion, marking completion of a judgment
Chin in fact omits this closing clause entirely.
A text file for Anki 2.1.55 or later: File → Import. The cards go to the deck “Analects”, tagged by passage, and importing again updates them instead of adding copies.
Discussion
No one has started on this passage yet.
Start the discussion in r/analects