Book 9: 《子罕》 Zi Han (Seldom Spoke)
《子罕》 Passage 9.23
Legge Translation (1861)
The Master said: "A youth is to be regarded with respect. How do we know that his future will not be equal to our present? If he reach the age of forty or fifty, and has not made himself heard of, then indeed he will not be worth being regarded with respect."Word by word
- 子曰 zǐ yuē
the Master said
- 子 the Master, honorific title for Confucius
- 曰 to say, said
- 後生 hòu shēng
the young, the younger generation
- 後 after, later; here: born after, younger
- 生 born, living; here: a person, generation
- 可畏 kě wèi
worthy of awe, to be held in reverence
- 可 can, may; worthy of, deserving of (with a following verb)
- 畏 to fear, hold in awe, revere
- 焉 yān
how, in what way (interrogative)
- 知 zhī
to know
- 來者 lái zhě
those who come after, future generations
- 來 to come; future, yet to arrive
- 者 nominalizing particle: one who, that which
- 之 zhī
subordinating particle marking a clause as a complement: that
之 nominalizes the subject-predicate clause 來者不如今 as the object of 知.
- 不如 bù rú
not as good as, inferior to
- 不 not
- 如 to be like, equal to, as good as
- 今 jīn
the present, now
- 也 yě
final particle closing a rhetorical question
- 四十 sì shí
forty
- 四 four
- 十 ten
- 五十 wǔ shí
fifty
- 五 five
- 十 ten
- 而 ér
conjunctive particle: and, and yet
- 無聞 wú wén
unheard of, without reputation
- 無 to lack, be without, have not
- 聞 to be known, have a reputation; to be heard of
- 焉 yān
final particle marking the close of the clause
- 斯 sī
then, in that case (resumptive particle)
- 亦 yì
also, too, likewise
- 不足畏 bù zú wèi
not worthy of awe, undeserving of reverence
- 不 not
- 足 sufficient, enough; worthy of, deserving of
- 畏 to fear, hold in awe, revere
- 也已 yě yǐ
combined sentence-final particles marking emphatic assertion: that is all
- 也 yě
final particle of assertion
- 已 yǐ
final particle reinforcing emphasis: that is all
已 here doubles down on the assertive close begun by 也.
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