Analects: Book 3Book 3. Pa Yih 八佾第三: Eight Lines of Eight Dancers Apiece
[3:1] Confucius said of the head of the Chi family, who had eight rows of pantomimes in his area, "If he can bear to do this, what may he not bear to do?"
Book 3. Bā Yì 八佾: Eight Lines of Eight Dancers Apiece
[3:1] Confucius observed of the Ji family, They have eight rows of dancers in their courtyard. If this can be excused, what cannot be excused? [F1]
Footnotes
[F1] According to Zhou ritual, only the Son of Heaven was privileged to have eight rows of dancers in the ceremonies in the courtyard before his ancestral temple. Persons of lower rank were expected to have a lesser number. The Ji families were ministers to a feudal lord and hence considerably lower in rank, yet they usurped the rites of the supreme ruler. Confucius sees this as an indication of social disharmony and moral decay.
Book 3
[3:1] Of the Chi having eight rows of dancers [F23] in his courtyard, Confucius said, If this is to be borne, what is not to be borne?
Footnotes
[F23] An Imperial prerogative.
Book 3. Ba Yi 八佾: Eight Lines of Eight Dancers Apiece
[3:1] Confucius, speaking about the head of the Qi family said, “He has eight rows of dancers in his court. If he does this, what will he not do?” [C1]
Footnotes
[F4] Legge's note to this passage says (with conversion to Pinyin): “The Tai mountain is the first of the ‘five mountains’ which are celebrated in Chinese literature, and have always received religious honors. It was in Lu, or rather on the borders between Lu and Ji, about two miles north of the present department city of Tai-an in Shandong. According to the ritual of China, sacrifice could only be offered to those mountains by the sovereign, and by the princes in whose States any of them happened to be. For the chief of the Ji family, therefore, to sacrifice to the Tai mountain was a great usurpation. Lin Pang, from which the reason of this reference to him may be understood. Ran You was one of the disciples of Confucius, and is now third, in the hall, on the west. He entered the service of the Ji family, and was a man of ability and resource.”
Commentary
[C1] In this passage and the following one, Confucius is complaining about a lower-level aristocrat using ceremonies that were officially prescribed for much higher-level nobility. “Eight rows of dancers,” was the amount allowable to only the most elite of the nobility. The head of the Qi family is often criticized in the Analects for similar improprieties.
八佾第三
【第一章】孔子謂季氏、八佾舞於庭、是可忍也、孰不可忍也。
Confucius (Kǒng Fūzǐ (孔夫子; Kong Qui) traveled the country in an ox cart observing and teaching his numerous disciples on the subjects of civics, ethics, literature, music and science. Of course, he claimed no divine inspiration and so naturally the writings attributed to him, recorded by his disciples, also make no such claim. |