by Confucius
Confucius’ message is simple: Carry out the responsibilities of your office, but don’t stick your nose into other people’s business. To do so is an act of intrusion or, worse, an act of encroachment, which, Confucius believed, could have unwanted consequences in the political world. Mencius gives several examples of men who would rather risk punishment than overstep the boundaries of their office. And he says this about Confucius: “Confucius was once a minor official in charge of stores. He said, ‘All I have to do is to keep correct records.’ He was once a minor official in charge of sheep and cattle. He said, ‘All I have to do is to see to it that the sheep and cattle grow up to be strong and healthy.’ To talk about lofty matters when in a low position is a crime.” Given his skills and knowledge, Confucius could have talked about “lofty matters,” but he did not, not from his lowly position.
8.15 The Master said, “From the opening song of the Grand Musician Zhi to the closing strain of the guanju ode, how the superabundant music fills our ears!”
Music had always been a part of ritual pageant in the Zhou court and in the courts of the regional rulers. Such a concert would start with a song—the grand musician would sing, accompanied by an ensemble of wind instruments called the sheng—and it would conclude with six poems from the Book of Odes, beginning with the guanju and performed with a full chorus and an orchestra of pipes and strings, bamboo and brass. Thus Confucius describes music as yangyang, “superabundant and beautiful.”
Confucius probably knew the Grand Musician Zhi well. He mentions him in 3.23, and, in 18.9, he says that this man “left for Qi.” Zhi was one of the many musicians who exited Lu around the time of Confucius’ death. Early histories give no explanation for their exodus.
8.16 The Master said, “Wildly spirited but not forthright, naïve but not honest, simple and tactless but not trustworthy—such men I do not understand.”
Confucius’ comment is, first, about human nature, that it is often not perfect: some people have a wild spirit, some are naïve, and some are just dull. He seems to accept this fact, but what surprises and piques him is that there are men who will not draw on what Arthur Waley calls “the merits of their faults” and turn those strengths into virtues. Xunzi believes that this is a difference between a gentleman and a petty man. They “are opposites,” he says. “When a gentleman lacks in intelligence, he is attentive and earnest, and he follows the proper models from the past. . . . When a petty man lacks in intelligence, he is thievish and likes to cause trouble.”
8.17 The Master said, “Learn as if you will never catch up, as though you are afraid of losing whatever you have already understood.”
Liu Baonan, quoting Huang Kan, says, “When you think that you will never catch up, you have already gotten there. If you are afraid of losing what you have learned, you will not lose it.”
8.18 The Master said, “Sublime was the way Shun and Yu held possession of the empire—they got it without seeking it, and once they had it, they took no part in it, and they thought nothing of it.”
Confucius describes the way in which Shun and Yu held possession of the empire simply as buyu (). But buyu could have one of several meanings: that Shun and Yu did not seek to possess the empire (the empire was handed to them); that they knew how to use the right men to help them govern and so it was as if they did not govern at all; or that they thought nothing of what they possessed and never claimed to have owned the empire even though they were its rulers. My translation tries to take all of these readings into account because, as Liu Baonan and Qian Mu suggest, together they give more depth to the idea of Shun and Yu and the idea of their sublimity.
8.19 The Master said, “Great was Yao as a ruler! Sublime was he! Heaven alone was great, and only Yao took it as his model. So vast and boundless was his virtue that the people could not give it a name. Yet sublime were his achievements, brilliant his cultural vestiges.”
The idea that the great kings modeled themselves after heaven and earth can be found in many early sources. Chapter 25 of the Book of Laozi says:
Hence the way is great; heaven is great; earth is great; and the king is also great. Within the realm there are four things that are great, and the king counts as one.
Man models himself on earth,
Earth on heaven,
Heaven on the way,
And the way on that which is naturally so.
The Book of Xunzi explains the virtues of Heaven and earth and why they would be the inspiration of a true king. Xunzi says, “Heaven does not speak, yet men know that it is high. Earth does not speak, yet men know that it is substantial. The four seasons do not speak, yet the people know that they will arrive in time. When a ruler has perfected his virtue, though he is silent, others understand him; though he bestows not favor, others gravitate toward him; though he is not angry, he possesses an awe-inspiring dignity.”
8.20 Shun had five ministers, and the empire was well governed. King Wu said, “I have ten able ministers.”
Confucius commented, “Talent [cai] is hard to find—is it not true? Talent flourished in the time of Yao and Shun and at the beginning of Zhou, [yet Shun had only five good men, and as for Wu,] with a woman among them there were only nine such men.”
[Confucius said,] “When Zhou already possessed two-thirds of the empire, it continued to serve the Yin dynasty. The virtue of the Zhou could be described as the highest virtue.”
When the early Chinese talked about talent, cai (), they had in mind someone who had moral integrity and could, at the same time, handle affairs in the world with skill and vision. Very few could measure up to such standards, Liu Baonan observes, and for this reason Confucius said “Talent is hard to find.” This is one question scholars try to address in their commentaries. There are, however, many more. Who, for instance, were the five good men who worked with Yao and Shun and the nine good men who worked with King Wen and King Wu, and who was the woman—did she hold high office? Should the last paragraph be a separate entry, and what did Confucius mean when he said, “When Zhou already possessed two-third of the empire, it continued to serve the Yin dynasty”? Most scholars agree on the identity of the good counselors, and they believe that the woman was either King Wen’s or King Wu’s wife, and that because she was not allowed a position in government she did not have the political status of a minister. The last paragraph could have been a loose strip of bamboo text that the editors put there because it was also about the history of the early Zhou; and when speaking about “the supreme virtue” of the Zhou, Confucius had in mind King Wen, who, like his uncle Tai Bo, possessed the virtue of yielding. King Wen could have completed his conquest of the Shang, but a sense of humility, perhaps, held him back, and he left the final assault on Shang to his son King Wu. Confucius says in 8.1 that Tai Bo embodied the highest virtue, because Tai Bo “yielded his right to the empire three times,” and here, in 8.20, he uses the same characters, zhide (), “the highest virtue,” to describe King Wen.
8.21 The Master said, “I can find no fault with [Emperor] Yu. His food and drink were simple, but for the gods and spirits, he provided lavish offerings to show his filial devotion. His everyday clothes were plain, but his ceremonial robes and caps were of the utmost elegance and beauty. His dwelling was shabby, but he put all his energy into constructing ditches and irrigation channels. I can find no fault with Yu.”
Yu was Yu the Great, who, according to early stories, controlled the flood that ravaged the central plains during the time of Yao and Shun. Mencius says, “Yu was entrusted with the task of controlling the flood. He led the floodwater into the sea by cutting channels for it in the ground.” And during the eight years when Yu was on the job, “he passed the door of his own house three times without entering.” He, in the eyes of the Confucians and their rivals, the Mohists, represented the perfect example of someone who devoted his life to working for the public good without any thought for himself and his family. And even after Shun ceded the throne to him, Yu saw himself as the empire’s caret
aker, not its master, which explains the comment Confucius makes in 8.18.
BOOK NINE
9.1 The Master seldom spoke about suitability [li], destiny [ming], and humaneness [ren].
The third-century scholar He Yan takes li to mean “appropriateness” or “suitability.” He says, “Li [suitability] goes together with yi [rightness].” But most of the later scholars think differently: they say that li means “profit.” The eleventh-century thinker Cheng Yi writes, “The drive to make a profit [li] is detrimental to the drive to do the right thing [yi],” and this is the reason why “Confucius avoided talking about it.” But how did this happen? How did li become disassociated from “rightness” and reemerge as its opposite? Liu Baonan gives much consideration to this question in his commentary. In his view, He Yan’s reading of li comes from the Book of Changes and other early sources, as in such expressions as “it is fitting [li] to see the great man,” “it is suitable [li] to invade and conquer,” and “it is fitting [li] to cross the wide river.” “The gentleman understands the meaning of li and yi,” says Liu Baonan, so that even though it may seem unsuitable for him, say, “to leap into fire or water,” because he is trying to save the life of his lord or father, what he does is right and is, therefore, suitable. “The gentleman knows that the question of suitability cannot stand outside the idea of rightness,” Liu explains, but “the petty man knows only about suitability [what suits him and what is profitable to him] and not rightness.” And as more people talked about li apart from rightness as their single objective, it lost its moral significance. But why did Confucius avoid speaking about li? The topic, for him, was “too subtle to go into,” Liu writes, and Confucius was afraid that people might “misunderstand what he thought about it.” And why did he seldom speak about destiny—the force behind life and death, fortune and misfortune? Perhaps because it was inexplicable, and Confucius was reluctant to talk about anything that he could not explain. And as for humaneness (ren), many scholars point out that from the records in the Analects, it seems that Confucius spoke often about the subject, which would contradict what is said here. Liu Baonan, following another Qing scholar, Ran Yuan, tells us that Confucius was indeed reluctant to talk about humaneness because he felt he had not achieved it himself and so did not want to speak to others about it, but his disciples, realizing that this was an important subject, recorded everything he said about it and so “it seemed that he spoke much about humaneness.”
9.2 A villager from Daxiang said, “How great is Confucius! He is vastly learned, and so has not made a name for himself in any particular area.”
The Master, having heard this, said to his disciples, “What should I specialize in? Charioteering? Or archery? I think I will specialize in charioteering.”
There are two ways of understanding this exchange: one has the two men trading barbs and the other has the same men being courteous to each other. The two ways contradict each other, yet both are sound. In the first scenario, the villager says of Confucius that he is learned in a broad sense but is not accomplished in any field, and Confucius returns the gibe by saying, Maybe I should try to perfect one particular set of skills—should I specialize in charioteering? Or archery? I think I’ll choose charioteering (the most humble of the six arts). In the second scenario, the villager speaks like a man of knowledge: he knows that it would be impossible to associate a man of wide learning with any single profession, and that this was true for Yao and Shun and is true for Confucius; and Confucius responds by saying that he cannot accept such an accolade and that he is considering specializing in charioteering.
9.3 The Master said, “Linen for ceremonial caps is what the rites prescribed. Nowadays, black silk is used, which is frugal. I follow the current practice. To bow at the foot of the dais, before ascending the stairs, is what the rites prescribed. Nowadays people bow at the top of the stairs, after they have reached the dais, which is presumptuous. Though it is against current practice, I still bow at the foot of the dais.”
To weave fibers of hemp into linen was more labor intensive than weaving silk, and so Confucius was ready to go along with the contemporary practice of wearing a ceremonial cap made of silk even though it was not what the rites called for. But he refused to follow the practice of bowing after one had climbed the stairs because this would mean that he would stand on the same level as his lord, which was disrespectful, and so he always observed the prescribed rule. Confucius knew that many factors could have contributed to a modification in ritual practice, and he was willing to consider the change if there was a good reason to do so and if it did not encourage laxity or transgressive behavior in human relationships.
9.4 The Master stayed away from four things: he did not put forth theories or conjectures; he did not think that he must be right; he was not obdurate; he was not self-centered.
My reading of the “four things” Confucius avoided follows that of Zhu Xi, who feels that the four are related sequentially. Once you have created a theory, he explains, you think that things must perform according to what your theory dictates; you will refuse to change your mind even when evidence shows that things are otherwise, and this is why the world is only as large as yourself. One could also say that Confucius stayed away from these four things because he saw them as a form of entrapment—what Zheng Xuan calls “an invitation to living a life of ignorance.”
9.5 The Master found his life under threat when he was in Kuang. He said, “With King Wen dead, is it not so that his cultural vestiges are invested in me? If Heaven intended this culture to be destroyed, it would not have let the descendants [of King Wen] take part in it. Since Heaven has not destroyed this culture, what can the people of Kuang do to me?”
Traditional scholars first try to explain just what sort of danger Confucius encountered in Kuang and why this should have come about. They all seem to agree that the crisis was a case of mistaken identity. The men of Kuang thought that Confucius was Yang Hu because of their physical likeness, and Yang Hu, though only a family retainer, had at one time been the most powerful figure in the state of Lu—someone everybody feared, from the ruler to the hereditary counselors and even Confucius himself. This Yang Hu, according to the history in the Zuo Commentary, had the army of Lu seize the town of Kuang from the state of Zheng in 504 BC, and to curry favor with the ruler of another state, he presented a group of captives to that man. For this reason the people of Kuang held a great grudge against him. Thus when Confucius showed up in Kuang, the men of Kuang, believing that he was Yang Hu, had him surrounded and were ready to take their revenge.
Confucius’ response to the crisis in Kuang was a mixture of bravado and confidence: he was certain that he had inherited King Wen’s work to keep the Zhou culture alive; and believing that this was also Heaven’s intent, he thought that no harm could come to him. But just how did he manage to extract himself from this tight situation? The Analects does not say, but the Han dynasty writers pitched in, offering several possible resolutions. One memorable one had Confucius sing a melody, and “after three rounds, the men of Kuang dispersed, and the siege was over.”
9.6 The chief counselor asked Zigong, “Your Master is a sage, is he not? But then why does he have so many skills?”
Zigong said, “Indeed, Heaven intended him to become a sage and to acquire many skills.”
When he heard this, the Master said, “The chief counselor understood me well. When I was young, I was from a humble station, which is the reason why I am skilled in many menial things. Should a gentleman be proficient in many menial tasks? No, definitely not.”
A “sage” (sheng), in the minds of the early Chinese, referred to someone who was born with foreknowledge, with an uncanny ability to know the future, which was quite different from skills acquired through learning and practice. Thus the chief counselor (probably of the state of Wu) was puzzled: If Confucius was destined to become a sage, why did he have to acquire so many skills? Zigong, in his attempt to defend his teacher, said that his teacher was end
owed with two sets of gifts—the potential to become a sage and the ability to acquire many skills. Confucius, however, felt that it was the chief counselor who understood him better than his disciple. To make his point, he said that it is not necessary even for a gentleman to be “proficient in menial skills”—and how much less so for a sage. And why was he “skilled in many menial things”? This was because he was “from a humble station” and was forced by circumstances to be adept in many things to make a living.
9.7 Lao added that he had heard the Master say, “I could not prove myself in office [bushi]. That is why I acquired many skills.”
Many scholars say that 9.7 and 9.6 should be considered together—that when Lao (probably a disciple) heard what Confucius said in 9.6, he reminded his teacher of what he had heard him say on another occasion. And what Confucius said in 9.7 could mean either “I could not enter government service as easily as young men of prominent families because of my poor and humble background, and so I acquired many skills” or “The world could not put me to use, and so I acquired many skills in order to put myself to use.” The first reading supports Confucius’ comment in 9.6, while the second reading offers another reason why Confucius was skilled in many things.
9.8 The Master said, “Do I possess an all-knowing cognizance? I do not. If a simple fellow asks me a question, my mind at first is a complete blank, and I have to knock at both sides [of the question] until everything has been considered [and some clarity begins to emerge].”
An alternative reading is: “Do I possess the ability to know the intent of others? I do not. If a simple fellow asks me a question with openness and sincerity, I will try to take him through the two sides of his question, and I will keep on doing it until he understands it himself.” Many scholars prefer the second reading. This, they say, is consistent with Confucius’ character and his teaching style—that he would never approach anyone who came to him with a question with ready answers or preconceived ideas even when the person was a simple fellow; that, instead, he would encourage the person to think through the problem himself by taking him through the pros and cons of the matter in question. Some scholars, however, argue that since in 9.2, 9.3, 9.6, and 9.7 Confucius is essentially talking about himself—his early life, his social background, his attempts to make a living—here he must also be referring to himself, to his, and not anyone else’s, struggle to understand something; and that knowledge, in his case, came from the struggle, from “knocking at both sides” of the question. My translation follows this reading.