A Note on the Translation

This is a complete translation of the twenty books of the Lunyu, the Analects, made directly from the Classical Chinese. No earlier English version was used as its basis. The source is a public-domain digital transcription of the received text, the text on which Zhu Xi (1130–1200) wrote his Collected Commentaries, with its transcription errors corrected. James Legge’s translation (1861, revised 1893) was opened only to check the sense of doubtful passages, and none of its wording is kept.

The book is divided as in Zhu Xi’s edition, into twenty books and 499 passages, numbered here from 1.1 to 20.3. Other modern editions divide a few passages differently and reach a slightly higher count. Each book is headed by its traditional name, its opening words in pinyin and in Chinese. Each passage prints the Chinese first, one clause to a line, and then the English, one line for each line of the Chinese, so that the original of any English line can be found by counting. Where the transcription had a miswritten or missing character, the Chinese is printed corrected; one such correction, at 12.1, reads 人 for 仁 with the received text.

The Analects is a book of short sayings and short exchanges. The disciples call their teacher simply the Master (zi), and the English keeps their usage; where the text itself says Kongzi, Master Kong, the English says Confucius. Disciples are named as the text names them, by personal or courtesy name, and the first note on each gives his other names. Confucius and Mencius keep the Latinized forms by which English readers know them; every other name and word is in pinyin, not in the Wade–Giles spelling of older books (Zilu, not Tzu-lu).

The words the book turns on are rendered the same way throughout. Ren 仁 is “humaneness,” and a man who has it is “humane”; junzi 君子 is “the gentleman,” a word that in the Analects names both a man of noble character and a man of noble rank, and xiaoren 小人 is “the petty man.” Li 禮, the forms of ceremony and conduct, is “ritual”; dao 道 is “the Way”; de 德 is “virtue.” Xiao 孝 is “filial piety,” and ti 弟 “respect for elders.” Zhong 忠, doing one’s utmost for others, is “conscientiousness”; shu 恕 is “reciprocity”; xin 信 is “good faith”; yi 義 is “rightness” or “what is right.” Tian 天 is “Heaven,” tianming 天命 “the mandate of Heaven,” and ming 命 “fate.” Shi 士, the men who trained for and served in office, are “men of service.” The Shi 詩, Shu 書, and Yi 易, the books Confucius taught, are the Songs, the Documents, and the Changes.

The 184 notes are the translator’s. Most say once who a person is; others explain an old rite or object, or give the other reading where the commentators divide widely. Nothing from the commentators has been folded into the text. Spelling and punctuation are American.