論語

論語

論語 · 述而第七

述而第七 — our preliminary translation beside James Legge's.

The Chinese is checked character by character against two woodblock editions: the 1798 十三經注疏 print and the 正平本 何晏《論語集解》. Two English versions are offered, and every line names the one you are reading: TD, our own (Tong De) preliminary translation, made from the Chinese and the classical commentaries (何晏 集解, 朱熹 集注, 邢昺 疏, 陸德明 音義) and shown by default; and James Legge's translation, quoted as published. Corrections welcome.

What you're looking at

Each passage is broken into its natural lines of original Chinese. For every line you can switch which English translation shows — TD, our own preliminary translation from the Chinese, or James Legge's, quoted as published and named on every line. Choose one with Version at the top of the page (on a phone it is under ⚙ Customize); tap a second version to read both together.

Tap a line’s number to copy that line — with its translation, when one is showing — and a link straight to it.

Two kinds of dotted underline appear under the Chinese, and they mean different things:

異文 · rival wording rare
The witnesses genuinely disagree on which character the text originally had — a real textual dispute. E.g., from 莊子: is the great fish 鯤 a “roe-fish,” or, as one editor argued, 鯨 a “whale”? Tap to see the competing texts.
釋文 · apparatus note
Everyone agrees on the character; the note just tells you one thing about it — 音 how it’s read · 訓 what it means · 異體 another way to write it · 句讀 where the clause breaks · 釋義 how the commentators interpret it. Every tap says which of these it is.

And when a character’s pronunciation itself is disputed (異讀), the mark rides on the pinyin instead of the character — the underlined syllable opens the rival readings (e.g. 鵬 as péng or fèng), grounded in the 經典釋文.

釋義 interpretation is the one that’s easy to mistake for a wording dispute: the character isn’t in doubt, only its sense — so it is not rival wording, and never gets the red mark. (Separately, “據 grounding” shows which vetted authority backs each of our own choices — so the page shows its receipts.)

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