Book 6: 《雍也》 Yong Ye (As for Yong)
《雍也》 Passage 6.19
Legge Translation (1861)
The Master said: "Man is born for uprightness. If a man lose his uprightness, and yet live, his escape from death is the effect of mere good fortune."Word by word
- 子曰 zǐ yuē
the Master said
- 子 the Master, honorific title for Confucius
- 曰 said, spoke
- 人 rén
a person, one
- 之 zhī
subordinating particle marking 人生 as a clause: that a person lives
- 生 shēng
to live, be alive
- 也 yě
topic-marking particle
- 直 zhí
upright, honest, having integrity
- 罔 wǎng
lacking uprightness, without integrity
朱熹 glosses 罔 as 不直, 'not upright', the reading most translators follow ('without integrity', 'crooked'); 何晏 preserves 包咸's 誣罔正直之道, deceiving and perverting the straight way, the sense behind Lau's 'dupes others'.
- 之 zhī
subordinating particle marking 罔生 as a clause: that the crooked live
- 生 shēng
to live, survive
- 也 yě
topic-marking particle
only Ames & Rosemont renders this explicitly, with 'as for'; the other seven leave the topic shift to sentence structure alone.
- 幸 xìng
luck, good fortune
- 而 ér
conjunctive particle: and, and so
here links 幸 and 免 adverbially ('fortunate, and so...').
- 免 miǎn
to escape, be spared, avoid (harm)
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