The Analects

by Confucius

18.5 As Jie Yu, the Madman of Chu, went past Confucius’ carriage, he sang:

  “Phoenix, phoenix,

  How your virtue has declined!

  What has gone by cannot be made right.

  What is to come still can be pursued.

  Leave off, leave off,

  Dangerous are those in office today.”

  Confucius got down from his carriage, hoping to have a word with the madman, but Jie Yu scampered away, to avoid him. Thus Confucius did not have a chance to speak to him.

  I wrote in The Authentic Confucius, “In this song, Confucius is the phoenix—not a phoenix in full splendor but one whose power ‘has declined’—from years of travel, perhaps, and the lonely chase of things good and noble. The madman tells Confucius, ‘Leave off, leave off,’ for one cannot correct the mistakes in the past nor anticipate new ones in the future. He warns also of the perils of politics: ‘Dangerous are those in office today.’” To which I would add that the madman asks Confucius to consider his path, his way of life, for we hear him sing, “What is to come still can be pursued.”

  Another version of this meeting is found the Book of Zhuangzi. In it the madman reveals more of his enigmatic self and draws a sharper distinction between himself and Confucius. He says to the latter, “Phoenix, phoenix, how your virtue has declined! . . . In times like the present, it is already hard work just to avoid punishment. . . . Enough, enough, this looking after people with the force of your integrity. / Dangerous, dangerous, this picking your path and then setting off. / Bramble, bramble, don’t spoil my walk. / I walk a crooked path—don’t hurt my feet.” Here, in Jie Yu’s view, “Confucius was phoenix and bramble: supremely noble and a menace,” as I wrote in my previous study. “He chose too carefully and pushed too far, in a time when it was ‘already hard work just to avoid punishment.’ And Confucius? What did he think of Jie Yu? He knew, of course, that Jie Yu was not raving mad, just so spirited that he could not walk a straight line. He knew also that Jie Yu had something to offer: a way out of his despair and a way out of the dangers humans created in a human world.” The desire to go with him was strong, but Confucius resisted it, as he did with all the other temptations like this.

  18.6 Chang Ju and Jie Ni were yoked together as they plowed the field. [Confucius went past them.] He then sent Zilu to find out where the ford might be.

  Chang Ju asked, “Who is that man driving the carriage?”

  Zilu replied, “It’s Kong Qiu [Confucius].”

  “Is it Kong Qiu of Lu?”

  “Yes.’

  “Then he knows where the ford is.”

  Zilu then tried [the other man,] Jie Ni.

  Jie Ni asked, “Who are you?”

  “Zhong You [Zilu].”

  “Then you must be a disciple of Kong Qiu of Lu.”

  “I am.”

  “[Look at the water,] it keeps on moving forward. Everywhere in the world is the same. So why bother to seek another [ruler] when you have given up this one? Why change? Moreover, why do you want to follow someone who keeps running away from men [who turned out to be the wrong ones to serve]? Why not follow those who have run away from the world altogether?” He then went back to planting his seeds, burying them one by one without stopping.

  Zilu went to tell Confucius what these two men had said. Confucius seemed lost in thought for a while. Then he spoke: “We cannot flock with birds and beasts, can we? Whom can I be with if not with other human beings? The world has a moral way, [I know,] so I will not change places with those two.”

  The Song scholar Jin Lüxiang thought that Chang Ju and Jie Ni could not be these men’s birth names. “Chang Ju” means “the tall and lean one from the wetland,” and “Jie Ni” means “the tall and well-built one with his feet covered in mud.” These are, therefore, nicknames or descriptive names like hekui, “the man carrying a bamboo basket,” in 14.39. And since these men lived near the water, as their names suggest, it seems reasonable for Confucius to send Zilu to ask them “where the ford might be.” Chang Ju’s response could be meant to say that if it is Confucius, the Confucius of Lu, who asks this question, then he should already know where the ford is, because he had been wandering around this part of the country for so long. Jie Ni, his companion in the field, is not any more helpful, but he makes a strong argument for giving up the world as most men find it. That world is shaped by the state, and no matter where you may be in that world, he says, you will find the same kind of ruler. And, as in the examples in 18.1 and 18.2, if you serve such a ruler honestly, you will be dismissed or, worse, have your body torn apart and your heart cut out. So, Jie Ni says to Zilu, why bother “to seek another when you have given up this one?” And why bother following a man who has done this repeatedly and found nothing but disappointment—why not join us, “who have run away from the world altogether”? This is one of the earliest calls of an agrarian partisan against the state, and it is the voice of a contentious man, not a simple farmer but someone who knows his opponent and has once lived at the other side of the divide. And Confucius’ response—“We cannot flock with birds and beasts, can we?”—is equally emotional. Confucius accepts the human world and the existence of the state, and no matter how dejected he may feel, he believes that a moral way can be found in the murkiness of the situation.

  18.7 While accompanying Confucius on the journey, Zilu happened to fall behind. He met an old man carrying a bamboo basket suspended from his staff. Zilu asked, “Have you seen my master?”

  The old man said, “You look like someone who hasn’t labored with his four limbs and cannot tell the difference between this kind of grain and that. Just who could be your master?” He then planted his staff on the ground and started weeding.

  Zilu stood, cupping one hand in the other, showing his respect.

  The old man stopped Zilu [from continuing his travels] and invited him home to spend the night. He killed a chicken and cooked millet for his guest to eat, and he introduced him to his two sons.

  The next day, Zilu resumed his journey, [and when he caught up with Confucius,] he told him what had happened. Confucius said, “[The old man] must be a recluse.” He then sent Zilu back to find him. When Zilu got there, the old man had already left for somewhere else. Zilu thereupon remarked, “There is no way of acquiring a sense of what is right if one does not enter public life. If a person knows not to abandon the measures of propriety between old and young, why, then, does he let go the moral responsibility between ruler and subject? By keeping himself unsullied, he has helped to bring chaos to an important human relationship. A gentleman takes office in order to understand the rightness in that relationship. As for putting the moral way into practice, he knows all along that it is not possible.”

  Here Zilu takes a clear stance regarding the human world—that it is here to stay—and he says that the political relationships in that world are as important as the relationships in a family and the relationship between friends; in fact, they put more demands on us, forcing us to work even harder to do the right thing. Thus to stay away from them—because we want to keep ourselves clean—is not only a sign of moral weakness, but, more important, it is something that will help to throw these relationships into disorder when they have already become an irrevocable part of our existence. And Zilu makes another point, which is more of a revelation than a pronouncement. He says that the gentleman plunges into the messy world of public service and the uncertain life of an official not because he feels that he is able to put “the moral way into practice.” “He knows all along that it is not possible,” Zilu tells us; rather, the gentleman does this “in order to understand the rightness” in those relationships. Most scholars believe that Zilu was simply repeating what Confucius had taught him, for he did not possess the subtlety and the moral acumen these words reflect. Still, one is grateful to have him play out the series of events that led to this coda and to have him register the right emotions as the story unfolds.

  Confucius in this account, as in 18.5, did not have a
chance to talk to the recluse, but the text implies that he was drawn to him and had respect for his way of life even though he made it clear through Zilu that it was not the life for him. And the recluse, like the madman in 18.5, was also cautious about Confucius’ bidding, and so he disappeared before the invitation arrived, which could mean that he did not want to come under Confucius’ influence and find himself back in the world of men. Some scholars say that the narrative style of 18.7—and also of 18.6—is a least a century ahead of its time, and so the record cannot be authentic. This may be true, but the spirit of the account reflects the spirit of the Analects and the Confucius we have come to know.

  18.8 Men of integrity who relinquished their rightful positions and became recluses include Bo Yi, Shu Qi, Yu Zhong, Yi Yi, Zhu Zhang, Liuxia Hui, and Shao Lian. The Master said, “Unwilling to lower their aim and bring disgrace upon themselves—that would be Bo Yi and Shu Qi. Liuxia Hui and Shao Lian were willing to lower their aim and bring disgrace upon themselves, but their words were morally sound and their conduct never wandered from their thought—this much is true. Yu Zhong and Yi Yi lived in reclusion and said whatever they liked; they were immaculate in character, and in giving up the world they acted with expediency. But I am different from all these men. I have no preconceptions about what one can or cannot do.”

  Since Bo Yi, Shu Qi, and Liuxia Hui had already been discussed in earlier entries and almost nothing was known about Yi Yi, Zhu Yang, and Shao Lian, most of the commentaries have focused on the identity of Yu Zhong. The search narrowed to two men in early history, Tai Bo’s brother Yu Zhong, or a later descendent of this Yu Zhong, also named Yu Zhong. Tai Bo was the oldest son of the Zhou chieftain Tai Wang, and uncle of King Wen and granduncle of King Wu. Confucius commended Tai Bo in 8.1 as someone who “may be said to embody the highest virtue” because he “yielded his right to the empire three times” and sought no recognition for his action. And Yu Zhong was the brother who accompanied him to the untamed regions in the east when Tai Bo decided to relinquish his title as the heir to his father’s position. These two older brothers wanted their youngest brother to be the next chieftain so that this man’s son and grandson would be able to fulfill their potential as founders of a new dynasty. These fragments of Yu Zhong’s life seemed to fit the Yu Zhong in Confucius’ description: he left his home for somewhere in the wild; his character, if it was at all like Tai Bo’s, was irreproachable; and “in giving up the world, he acted with expediency.” Some scholars, however, say that Yu Zhong could also be a descendant of the older Yu Zhong. But their argument produces no evidence that bears a direct relationship to Confucius’ comments about him. And regarding Zhu Zhang, Wang Bi, the third-century scholar of the Laozi and the Book of Changes, says that this man was Confucius’ disciple Zhonggong. This, however, remains speculative, and since Confucius said nothing about Zhu Zhang, we should perhaps do the same until more evidence comes to light, and the same could be said of Yi Yi. What about Shao Lian? There is a Shao Lian in the Book of Rites, who was from the Lu region. Confucius thought that he and his brother “were good at observing the mourning rites,” but there is no mention there or in other sources about his leaving the civilized world for the wild.

  More important than the identity of these men is Confucius’ final statement. One could read it as a companion to his assertion in 9.4 about the four things he stays away from and as a summing-up of what he has been saying all along about himself—in this chapter and throughout the Analects—that he does not approach life with preconceived notions and will not let his thought and action be the vehicle of an overarching principle. This meant, of course, that for each step of the way, he would have to look at the world anew and rely on his learning of a lifetime to help him see clearly what he “can or cannot do.”

  18.9 Zhi, the Grand Musician, left for Qi; Gan, musician for the second course of the banquet, left for Chu; Liao, musician for the third course, left for Cai; Jue, musician for the fourth course, left for Qin; Fang Shu the drummer walked down to the Yellow River; Wu, player of the hand drum, walked down to the River Han; Yang, the Grand Musician’s deputy, and Hsiang, who played the stone chimes, walked down to the sea.

  Zhi was the Grand Musician at the court of Lu. In 8.15, Confucius says of his performance, “how the superabundant music fills our ears!” From this slip of information, most scholars conclude that it is reasonable to assume that all the musicians on this roster were Confucius’ contemporaries. Their exodus, to Confucius’ mind, is a further indication of the moral decline of Lu. A few scholars, however, believe that these musicians could have lived in the last years of the Shang dynasty, because it is stated in several early histories that “the blind court musicians, clasping the instruments in their arms, dispersed in all directions. Some sought the patronage of regional rulers; others went to the edge of the sea.” But there is a problem with this conjecture, Liu Baonan says, because the regional states some of the musicians fled to, Qi, Chu, Cai, and Qin, were Zhou states, and so could not have existed during the Shang.

  18.10 The Duke of Zhou said to the Duke of Lu, “A person in a ruling position does not forget his nearest and dearest. He also does not give his officials occasion for complaint because he has failed to employ their skills [or consider their advice]. He does not abandon old friends and relations unless they have committed serious transgressions. He does not ask for perfection in anyone.”

  Most scholars think that this was what the Duke of Zhou said to his son, Boqin, before Boqin journeyed to the east to establish a settlement, which, in time, became the state of Lu. I wrote in the The Authentic Confucius: “Here, the Duke of Zhou appears to be fully aware of the delicate nature of human relationships. He tells his son to be considerate of those who are ‘nearest and dearest’ to him and those who work with him in politics; and he asks his son to be mindful of matters of greater importance so as not to let things of lesser importance spoil those relationships that should have constancy.” I observed, “The Duke of Zhou offered guidelines but no theory, not here and not in any of his official speeches and proclamations. . . . Yet the words that were attributed to him in the early records could easily add up to a vision of political relationships and social arrangement that, for the sensitive mind, carried a deep moral resonance.”

  18.11 There were eight learned officials in the Zhou: Boda and Bokuo, Zhongtu and Zhonghu, Shuye and Shuxia, Jisui and Jigua.

  According to traditional commentaries, these eight illustrious officials were four sets of twins born to the same woman in early Zhou, either during the reign of King Wu or that of his son King Cheng. The names Bo, Chong, Shu, and Ji indicate the order of their birth, with Bo being the oldest and Ji the youngest. The fact that they all had brilliant careers in government portended good fortune for the young dynasty. At a time when everything that mattered was on the decline, Qian Mu explains, it was natural for people to be nostalgic about those distinguished men from a glorious era in the past. Such is the case here, but no one knows who assembled the list of the four pairs of brothers or how the brothers found their way into the Analects.

  BOOK NINETEEN

  Book Nineteen belongs to the disciples, to those that survived Confucius and had already attracted students to their side. Scholars have noted the absence of Youzi, who, given his strong presence in Book One, was thought of as an early compiler of the Analects and who, for a while, had others believing that he could fill the void Confucius had left behind. How, then, do we explain his absence? Is he absent because he did not do enough to cultivate a following of his own? The legalist thinker Hanfeizi says that after Confucius’ death his disciples split ten ways, each professing to be their teacher’s most accurate interpreter. The tension is evident in this chapter. Confucian scholars, however, see a silver lining in the discordance. They believe that the sparring kept the teachings alive and vigorous.

  19.1 Zizhang said, “[I would think that] a man is good enough to join the official ranks if he is ready to lay down his life whe
n faced with danger, is mindful of what is right when he sees a chance for gain, and turns his thoughts to respectfulness during a sacrifice and to sorrow when in mourning.”

  We are told in 2.18 that “Zizhang was studying with the hope of obtaining an official position.” In fact, most of the questions he had for Confucius, even those about keen perception and clouded judgment, can be understood as his attempt to find out what would make a good official. Here he seems to be offering his own assessment of who is qualified “to join the official ranks,” but, in Qian Mu’s view, Zizhang is merely repeating what Confucius says in 14.12 about how such a man should respond when “faced with danger” and when he “sees [a chance for] profit,” and what Confucius says in 3.26 about a man’s mental state during a sacrifice and when in mourning.

  19.2 Zizhang said, “Holding on to virtue but not making it grand; having trust in the Way but not with full conviction—can we say such a man has gotten it or not?”

  Some scholars feel that what Zizhang says here about virtue—that in order to possess it, one must make it grand—is a reflection of himself, of his grand presence and of his preference for a grand presentation of a lofty idea. A fellow disciple, Zengzi, said that Zizhang’s presence was so imposing that it was “hard to work side by side with him on the practice of humaneness.” This description stuck, especially for scholars who followed Zengzi, of whom there were many. But if this reading is correct—if to make virtue grand is simply to give virtue a grand presence—why then does one need to have complete trust in the moral way? Qian Mu thinks that the two ideas in Zizhang’s statement are related: a person’s virtue can expand only when he is committed to living a moral life. And in the case of those who hold on to this idea narrowly and unimaginatively, Zizhang asks, Have they gotten it or not?