Book 7: 《述而》 Shu Er (Transmission)
《述而》 Passage 7.30
Legge Translation (1861)
The Master said: "Is virtue a thing remote? I wish to be virtuous, and lo! virtue is at hand."Word by word
- 子曰 zǐ yuē
the Master said
- 子 the Master, i.e. Confucius (honorific title)
- 曰 said, spoke
- 仁 rén
benevolence, humaneness, moral virtue
Translators diverge sharply on this verdict-term: most use a general virtue-word (benevolence/humaneness/virtue), Slingerland capitalizes it as 'Goodness', and Ames & Rosemont render it via the role-based 'authoritative conduct'.
- 遠 yuǎn
far, remote
- 乎哉 hū zāi
combined interrogative-exclamatory final particle: emphatic rhetorical question marker
- 乎 interrogative final particle
- 哉 exclamatory final particle, intensifying emphasis
English forms the rhetorical question through inversion and a question mark; a few translators add an intensifier ('really', 'at all') for 哉's emphatic force, but most leave the particles' work to syntax alone.
- 我 wǒ
I, me
- 欲 yù
desire, want
- 仁 rén
benevolence, humaneness, moral virtue
- 斯 sī
resultative connective: then, thereupon
- 仁 rén
benevolence, humaneness, moral virtue
- 至矣 zhì yǐ
arrives and is now present, has come
- 至 arrive, reach; come to be present
- 矣 final particle marking a newly realized or completed state
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