Confucius

by Meher McArthur

  Annping Chin translates the phrase yehe as ‘he and the girl made love in the field’. Chin also proposes that Shuliang may have ended his first marriage because that wife failed to give him sons, and driven away the concubine who had borne him his disabled son, so they must have had a legitimate marriage. But then, she wonders, why did they make love in the fields? See Chin, Annping, The Authentic Confucius: A Life of Thought and Politics (New York: Scribner, 2007), pp. 24–5.

  Some translations of Sima Qian, such as Yang and Yang, have avoided this issue by not translating the phrase yehe and simply stating, ‘Shu-liang-heh took a daughter of the Yen family’. See Yang and Yang, Records of the Historian, p. 1.

  5 Some scholars state that the disabled son, Mang-pi, was borne by a concubine, not the first wife. See Legge, Confucius, pp. 56–8.See also Chin, The Authentic Confucius, p. 24.

  6 In traditional Chinese astrology, the five planets are Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars and Saturn, corresponding to the Daoist Five Elements of metal, wood, water, fire and earth, respectively. The planets, and also many of the stars, were often regarded as spirits or deities and were believed to influence earthly events, especially the life and death of human beings. The appearance of the spirits of the five planets together would have been considered particularly auspicious.

  7 See Legge, Confucius, p. 59, note 1.

  8 This date is not definite. Sima Qian’s account claims 551 BC, while sources, including Zhu Xi (1130–1200), the most important neo-Confucianist thinker of the Song dynasty, claim he was born in the twenty-first year of Duke Xiang’s reign, so 552 BC. The actual day of his birth is believed to have been the twentieth day of the tenth month of that year, but his birthday is now generally celebrated on 28 September of our solar calendar.

  9 See Legge, Confucius, p. 59, note 1.

  10 Yang and Yang, Records of the Historian, p. 1.

  11 Clements, Confucius, p. 10.

  12 Yang and Yang, Records of the Historian, p. 1.

  13 Throughout his life, Confucius emphasised the importance of music in ritual, even correlating harmony in ceremonial music with a harmonious society. He suggested that good government is only possible if musical notes are harmonised; if the notes are out of order, chaos ensues. Music, therefore, was not merely for entertainment; it had a critical social and ritual function and must be performed correctly. This belief is reflected in his exclamation: ‘They speak of music here, and music there – as if music merely meant bells and drums.’ Leys, The Analects, 17.11, p. 87.

  14 This verse is Song 20 from The Book of Songs, a collection of tra ditional songs and hymns that was likely compiled after Confucius’ lifetime. This translation is taken from Waley, Arthur (translator), The Book of Songs: The Ancient Chinese Classic of poetry (New York: Grove Press, 1996), p. 18.

  15 Leys, The Analects, 17.9, p. 87.

  16 See Note 13.

  17 Yang and Yang, Records of the Historian, pp. 21–2.

  18 Legge, Confucius, p. 60.

  19 Leys, The Analects, 9.6, p. 40.

  20 Leys, The Analects, 2.4, p. 6.

  21 Shu Jing (Shu Ching), translation by James Legge, reprinted by Hong Kong University Press, 1960, vol. III, p. 52, reproduced on http://www.chinapage.com/confucius/shujing-e.html. (Note: the names have been changed to Pinyin here.)

  22 Clements, Confucius, pp. 12–13. Clements notes that some sources report that the couple eventually divorced in their forties, but does not cite the sources.

  23 The subject of Confucius’ possible divorce is discussed further in Chapter 5.

  24 See Legge, Confucius, p. 60. Sima Qian mentions his son’s two names but does not explain their origin. See Yang and Yang, Records of the Historian, p. 26.

  25 Leys, The Analects, 16.13, pp. 83–4.

  26 The reaction of Confucius to the death of Yan Hui is discussed in Lunyu 11.8 to 11.11, translation by Simon Leys, p. 50.

  27 Leys, The Analects, 5.1, p. 19.

  28 Leys, The Analects, 17.25, p. 89.

  29 There is little room here for a discussion on Confucianism, sexism and feminism. For a lively treatment of this topic, see Li, Chenyang (ed.), The Sage and the Second Sex: Confucianism, Ethics, and Gender (Chicago and La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, a division of Carus, 2000).

  30 Mark Edward Lewis notes that despite their weak role in ancient Chinese society, women wielded considerable power in the home. ‘The major basis of such power was the authority of the mother over her sons. In early imperial China, the authority of age took precedence over that of gender, and filial obedience to both male and female parents was a son’s highest obligation.’ See Lewis, Mark Edward, The Construction of Space in Early China (Albany:State University of New York Press, 2006), p. 106.

  31 Leys, The Analects, 1.2, p. 3.

  32 Leys, The Analects, 17.21, p. 89.

  33 According to Sima Qian, his mother had hidden the location of his father’s grave from Confucius, but after her death a woman from the village of Tsu revealed it to him and he buried her at Mount Fang with his father. Yang and Yang, Records of the Historian, p. 1.

  34 This story is recounted both in Clements, Confucius, p. 18, and in Legge, Confucius, p. 62.

  35 In the Doctrine of the Mean (Zhongyong), one of the Four Books (Sishu) selected in the Song dynasty (960–1279) to introduce the teachings of Confucius, Confucius is said to have lamented that he himself felt that he had failed in his roles as son, subject, younger brother and friend. If this is the case, his admiration for his mother’s accomplishments would make perfect sense. However, we should note that, like The Analects, this work was supposedly written by his grandson, Zisi, and so cannot be taken as his actual words. See Goldin, Paul Rakita, The Culture of Sex in Ancient China (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2002), Chapter 3: ‘Women and Sex Roles’, p. 55.

  Chapter 4: Early Career and Teachings

  1 Sima Qian says that he managed the granaries of the Ji clan (the Jisun family), who were one of the three powerful families of the state of Lu – see Yang and Yang, Records of the Historian, p. 2.

  2 Legge, Confucius, p. 60, quoting from Mencius, V. Pt. II v. 4.

  3 Legge, Confucius, p. 61, quoting from Mencius, V. Pt. II v. 4.

  4 Leys, The Analects, 2.11, p. 7.

  5 Leys, The Analects, 7.1, p.29. Although, according to The Analects, Confucius claimed to have invented nothing, this has often been questioned. For example, some, including nineteenth-century Chinese scholar and political thinker Kang Youwei, have argued that he actually invented the ‘golden age’ of the Western Zhou dynasty to push his reform agenda. See Immanuel C.Y. Hsü, The Rise of Modern China (6th edition, Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 364.

  6 Leys, The Analects, 2.2, p. 6.

  7 Leys, The Analects, 13.5, p. 61.

  8 Leys, The Analects, 2.15, p. 8.

  9 Leys, The Analects, 7.8, p. 30.

  10 Waley, Arthur (translator), The Analects of Confucius (New York: Vintage Books, 1989) 7.7, p. 124. The Chinese word shuxiu literally means ‘a [small] bundle of [ten slices] of dried meat’. Waley notes that one commentator translated the word to mean ‘attained manhood’, that is, the age of fourteen. However, the term is generally accepted to mean ‘dried meat’, and is still used today to refer to ‘tuition fees’.

  11 Although Confucius generally directed his teaching to males, the character ren in the word xiaoren does not just mean ‘man’. In fact, it is more correctly translated as ‘person’, so xiaoren can apply to petty-minded people of both sexes.

  12 Leys, The Analects, 14.28, p. 70.

  13 During the Eastern Zhou period, a limited education was available to women of the upper classes. They were generally taught within the confines of their homes by their own mothers or mothers-in-law, and much of their study related to their roles as mothers, wives and daughters-in-law. However, contemporary texts tell of certain noblewomen who were knowledgeable in rituals, morality and politics, and some of these women even advised the male members of thei
r family. Most famous is Lady Jing, the mother of Gongfu Wenbo, an eminent Lu statesman and contemporary of Confucius. According to the Discourses of the States (Guoyu), a collection of speeches and narratives from the Eastern Zhou period, Lady Jing discussed politics and morality with Gongfu Wenbo, blaming the desperate political state of Lu on the fact that its rulers were uninformed and indolent. She was also the great aunt of Ji Kangzi, the head of the Jisun clan, and advised him that the key to a noble man’s posterity is hard work. She was an expert in ritual and was praised for this knowledge and for her superior morality by Confucius. According to Paul R. Gordon, the contemporary stories about Lady Jing ‘embody the belief that all men, including those at the very apex of society, can learn from wise women’. See Wang, Robin R. (ed.), Images of Women in Chinese Thought and Culture: Writings from the Pre-Qin Period through the Song Dynasty (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co. Inc., 2003), Chapter 9, pp. 83–91.

  14 Legge, Confucius, p. 115.

  15 Legge, Confucius, p. 87.

  16 Legge, Confucius, pp. 61–2, from Liji, II, Section 1.i.10; Section 2.iii.3o, Muller (ed.)/Legge (trans.), Sacred Books of China (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1885), vol. III, p. 369. See also Clements, Confucius, p. 18.

  17 This episode is recounted in the Zuo Zhuan commentary of The Spring and Autumn Annals, under the seventh year of Duke Zhao of Lu. Legge, Confucius, pp. 62–3. It is likely that this encounter between Confucius and the Viscount of Tan, or at least the content of their discussion, was a later invention datable to the Warring States period, since the philosophical theories that they are said to have discussed were not formed in the time of Confucius (Conversation with Jonathan Markley, March 2009).

  18 Waley, The Analects, 3.23, p. 100.

  19 Clements, Confucius, p. 19.

  20 Waley, The Analects, 2.4, p. 88.

  21 This excerpt is taken from Legge, Confucius, pp. 63–4, quoting from the Zuo Zhuan commentary of The Spring and Autumn Annals, Duke Zhao, seventh year. Sima Qian recounts the same story but says that Meng Xizi died when Confucius was seventeen and his son joined Confucius as a disciple shortly afterwards (see Yang and Yang, Records of the Historian, pp. 1–2). In most later biographies, Confucius is said to have only started taking students in his twenties, making this chronology seem unlikely.

  22 Yang and Yang, Records of the Historian, p. 2.

  23 Leys, The Analects, 9.17, p. 41.

  24 Sima Qian gives no details of the trip to Luoyang, stating simply, ‘They went to Chou [the capital of Zhou] to study rites and there met Lao Tzu [Laozi].’ The details here are drawn from Legge, Confucius, p. 66, who quotes from vol. II of Narratives of the School (Jiayu), a Wei dynasty text (386–535) supposedly based on an earlier text about Confucius. The edition used by Legge was edited by Li Yung in 1780 (see Legge’s notes, p. 132).

  25 Legge, Confucius, p. 66, quoting from the Narratives of the School, vol. II.

  26 Yang and Yang, Records of the Historian, pp. 2–3.

  27 Legge, Confucius, p. 65, quoting from Sima Qian’s Shiji, Chapter 63. For translation see Nienhauser, William H., Jr. (editor), Tsai-fa Cheng, Zhongli Lu, William H. Nienhauser, Jr. and Robert Reynolds (translators), The Grand Scribe’s Records, vol. 7, Memoirs of Pre-Han China by Ssu-ma Ch’ien (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994), pp. 21–2.

  28 Legge, Confucius, p. 65, quoting from Sima Qian’s Shiji, Chapter 63. For translation see Nienhauser, The Grand Scribe’s Records, p. 22.

  29 Yang and Yang, Records of the Historian, p. 3.

  30 Legge, Confucius, pp. 67–8, referring to the Narratives of the School, vol. 4, and quoting Liji, II, Section II. iii. 10.

  31 I have slightly changed Leys’ translation here for clarity. See Leys, The Analects, 7.14, p. 30.

  32 Yang and Yang, Records of the Historian, p. 3.

  33 Legge, Confucius, p.68, quoting from the Narratives of the School, vol. II, Book 6.

  34 Yang and Yang, Records of the Historian, p. 4.

  35 Leys, The Analects, 13.3, p. 61.

  36 Yang and Yang, Records of the Historian, p. 4.

  37 Clements, Confucius, pp. 36–7, quoting from the Kong Family Masters’ Anthology, II. 14 (Ariel, Y., Kung-ts’ung-tzu – The K’ung Family Masters’ Anthology [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989]. p. 85).

  38 Yang and Yang, Records of the Historian, p. 4. It has been suggested that these criticisms of Confucius were not actually made by Yan Ying, who was very similar to Confucius in many ways, but by other statesmen in Qi who were suspicious of Confucius and his attachment to ritual, ceremonies and the ways of the ancients. See Legge, Confucius, p. 69.

  39 Yang and Yang, Records of the Historian, p. 4.

  40 Clements, Confucius, pp. 41–2, drawing from the Kong Family Masters’ Anthology, II, 14 (Ariel, p. 77).

  Chapter 5: Return to Lu

  1 Leys, The Analects, 3.6, pp. 10–11.

  2 Leys, The Analects, 3.1, p. 10.

  3 Leys, The Analects, 3.2, p. 10.

  4 Legge, Confucius, notes p. 317.

  5 Leys, The Analects, 17.1, p. 85.

  6 Leys, The Analects, 17.5, p. 86.

  7 The final flight of Gongshan Furao and Yang Hu may not have been until 498 BC, when the Duke had regained some power over the Three Families and Confucius was employed by him as Minister of Justice. Annping Chin notes that Gongshan Furao (aka Gongshan Buniu) maintained control of Bi until 498, when Confucius attempted to dismantle the strongholds of the Three Families in order to empower Duke Ding. Just as the Duke and his forces were preparing to attack Bi, Gongshan and his Jisun forces attacked the capital, and the Duke and his family hid in a palace tower. It was Confucius who ordered officers to lead an assault on the Jisun troops, defeating them, and ‘the two rebel leaders ran for the state of Qi’. Chin, Annping, The Authentic Confucius, p. 30.

  8 Leys, The Analects, 2.4, p. 6.

  9 Leys, The Analects, 9.23, p. 42.

  10 Leys, The Analects, 17.26, p. 71.

  11 Clements, Confucius, Chronology, p. xiv.

  12 Baber, Ray Erwin, ‘Marriage in Ancient China,’ Journal of Educational Sociology, vol. 8 (American Sociological Association, November 1934), pp. 139–49.

  13 Leys, The Analects, 8.13, p. 37.

  14 Yang and Yang, Records of the Historian, p. 6.

  15 The Book of Changes is a text that is also closely identified with Daoism, and contains an ancient system of cosmology and philosophy that uses symbols to find order in chance events. The Spring and Autumn Annals is a history of the state of Lu from 722 to 479 BC that has also traditionally been attributed to Confucius. The Book of Music is sometimes considered the Sixth Classic, but became a chapter in The Book of Rites. As well as the Five Confucian Classics, followers of Confucianism also extol the Four Books of Song Dynasty Neo-Confucianist Zhu Xi – The Analects (Lunyu), The Great Learning (Do Xue), The Doctrine of the Mean (Zhongyong), and Mencius (Mengzi), the first three of which have also traditionally been attributed in some form to Confucius.

  16 Yang and Yang, Records of the Historian, p. 6.

  17 Leys, The Analects, 14.26, p. 70.

  18 Leys, The Analects, 2.4, p. 6.

  19 Leys, The Analects, 13.10, p. 62.

  20 Leys, The Analects, 2.1, p. 6.

  21 Legge, Confucius, p. 72, citing Narratives of the School, Book I

  22 Yang and Yang, Records of the Historian, p. 6.

  23 Legge, Confucius, p. 73, citing Narratives of the School, Book I. Legge says that Confucius told the Jisun leader that he united the tombs to ‘hide his disloyalty’, while Clements, who also cites this episode from Legge, writes that Confucius claimed to be ‘atoning for his disloyalty to his former master’ (Clements, Confucius, p. 71). The latter seems a more plausible explanation.

  24 It is not clear exactly when Confucius was promoted from Minister of Works to Minister of Justice and what his achievements were in each post. Sima Qian simply states, ‘He was promoted to be Minister of Works, then Chief Jus
tice’, and then goes on to recount Confucius’ successful work in diplomacy at Jiagu in the tenth year of Duke Ding’s reign, namely 500 BC (Yang and Yang, Records of the Historian, p. 6). Legge follows Sima Qian’s vague chronology (Legge, Confucius, pp. 72–3) but mentions Confucius’ issue with Duke Zhao’s tomb after stating that he became Chief Justice. Clements chooses to attribute both the episode with Duke Zhao’s tomb and his diplomatic coup at Jiagu to his time as Minister of Works (Clements, Confucius, pp. 70–71). While the interment of Duke Zhao might indeed have been one of the duties of a Minister of Works, it seems to this author more likely that he would have joined an important political summit with the Duke in the role of Minister of Justice.

  25 Yang and Yang, Records of the Historian, pp. 6–7.

  26 Yang and Yang, Records of the Historian, p. 7. The term ‘barbarian’ is a translation of the Chinese words yi or di, which refer to the non-Chinese peoples of the east and north of China, who were considered by the Zhou Chinese to be non-cultured foreigners.

  27 Yang and Yang, Records of the Historian, p. 7.

  28 This version of the story follows Legge’s account of the summit meeting, which presents the Duke’s offer to provide entertainment as a celebration after signing the treaty (see Legge, Confucius, pp. 73–4). Legge’s account is based on that given in the Zuo Zhuan commentary of The Spring and Autumn Annals, Duke Ding, tenth year. Sima Qian records that the Duke of Qi proposed the entertainment after the dismissal of the barbarians, and then, once Confucius had refused the entertainment (and ordered the performers killed for ‘beguiling their lords’!), Duke Jing shamefacedly agreed to Lu’s demands to return the territory taken from Lu (See Yang and Yang, Records of the Historian, p. 7.)

  29 Legge, Confucius, p. 74, citing Narratives of the School, Book II. Here, we see an example of Confucius practising the principle that princes should behave like princes and fathers should behave like fathers, a notion that is closely connected with his doctrine of the ‘Rectification of Names’, in which language must be used correctly. As Minister of Justice, Confucius argued that it was not fair to punish a son for not being son-like if his father had not been father-like towards him. This doctrine was not simply meant to maintain a strict social hierarchy but to prevent those with power from abusing it and protect the weak from being abused.