Original Analects Supplement
LY 5
(c0470)

Passages: 15

Prefatory Note. This chapter is important as expressing the interests of the posthumous School of Confucius in its earliest days, operating on its own, beyond the scope of the remembered sayings of Confucius himself, which, as gathered in LY 4, were still its core heritage. Was the group yet a movement? At any rate, we see it in the first stages of organization, and at least in the process of becoming a movement, by explicitly adapting the terms of Confucius's maxims to the reality of contemporary Lu office-getting and office-holding.

5:15-24.. These are estimates of the character of certain past political figures, all of them but Bo-yi and Shu-chi (5:23) and perhaps the equally legendary Weishvng Gau (5:24) being figures from no earlier than the time of Lu Syi-gung (see now Brooks Transition) and largely drawn from other states than Lu. Together, these figures seem to have represented the statecraft consciousness of contemporary Lu officials. On the accuracy of the 05c mental pictures of those persons, see now Brooks Lore.

This Supplement is Copyright © 2001- by E Bruce and A Taeko Brooks

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