Book 9: 《子罕》 Zi Han (Seldom Spoke)
《子罕》 Passage 9.26
Legge Translation (1861)
The Master said: "The commander of the forces of a large state may be carried off, but the will of even a common man cannot be taken from him."Word by word
- 子曰 zǐ yuē
the Master said
- 子 the Master, Confucius
- 曰 said, spoke
- 三軍 sān jūn
the Three Armies, a state's combined military forces
- 三 three
- 軍 army, military force
三軍 is the standard idiom for the total armed forces of a major Zhou state; Legge and Roberts paraphrase without the numeral.
- 可奪 kě duó
can be seized, forcibly taken (potential passive)
- 可 modal: can, may (marks potential passive)
- 奪 to seize, take by force, deprive of
Roberts renders this clause in future tense ('will be taken prisoner') rather than with a potential modal, but still conveys the commander's seizure.
- 帥 shuài
commander, general (of an army)
- 也 yě
clause-final particle marking a pause, sets up the parallel contrast with the next clause
- 匹夫 pǐ fū
common man, ordinary person, commoner
- 匹 common, ordinary
- 夫 man, fellow (adult male)
- 不可奪 bù kě duó
cannot be seized, cannot be forcibly taken (negated potential passive)
- 不 not
- 可 modal: can, may (marks potential passive)
- 奪 to seize, take by force, deprive of
Roberts recasts the clause as a temporal precondition ('before you can deprive...') rather than a direct negation, so no single span in his translation corresponds to 不可奪 alone.
- 志 zhì
will, determination
- 也 yě
sentence-final particle of assertion, closes the second clause
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