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ConfuciusAnalects of Confucius
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | BCEA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaBooks 10-12 Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Book 10 Summary
Confucius narrates the actions of Kung-tze as a way of providing an example of an individual who has cultivated the desired behaviors that bind the individual and society together and produce a just and orderly body politic:
In the dynastic temple, or court, speaking with easy pertinence; answering with prompt respect (59).
When there was a lot of meat he would not take more than what properly went with the rice [...] Did not talk while eating nor in bed [...] Although but coarse rice or vegetable broth he would offer decorously a gourd in sacrifice (61).
When a friend died with no one to return [the body to its home for burial] he said: I will see to the funeral (62).
Through this brief narration of the life and actions of Kung-tze, Confucius provides an image of the moral character of the one who possesses manhood: acting always out of respect for one’s friends and for cultural traditions (i.e., assuming the duties of carrying out a friend’s funeral and respectfully inhabiting temples and courts) and always in accord with what is appropriate for each setting, and never desiring more than what is required (i.e., never taking more meat than what is appropriate to the portion of rice he is allotted).
Book 11 Summary
Confucius addresses the correct and proper ways individuals and society as whole should relate to death and funeral rites, the gravity of which Confucius states in the following manner:
Chi Lu asked about the service for ghosts and spirits. Confucius said: You cannot be useful to the living, how can you be useful to [serve] ghosts? ‘Venture to ask about death.’ [He] said: Not understanding life, how can you understand death? (65).
For Confucius, the respect and reverence that one displays during funerals and in the mourning of the death of a friend or loved one should also be carried over when governing/leading a people: “A state is managed with ceremony” (70). These traits of respect and reverence, whether in death or in politics, are the characteristics of the moral individual who acts appropriately with respect to what is called for by various situation. Thus Confucius tells his student, Chi Tze-zan, “You call a man a great minister when he serves his prince honestly, and retires when he cannot” (69). In this way, Confucius claims that the avoidance of excess in words and deeds reveals the one who acts appropriately during death, funeral rites, and in government: “Yen Yuan died, and He [Confucius] mourned greatly; disciples said: This is excessive. He said: Excessive? If I do not greatly lament him, whom should I [mourn]?” (65).
Book 12 Summary
Confucius carries forward the theme of the relationship between “manhood,” traditional rituals, politics, and the individuals relation to society as a whole: Regarding the relation of traditional rituals and manhood, Confucius says:
If a man can be adequate to himself for one day and return to the rites, the empire would come home to itself as manhood. This business of manhood sprouts from one’s self, how can it sprout from others? Yen Yuan said: Wish I had the eye to see it, may I ask? [Confucius says:] If something is contrary to the rites, don’t look at it, don’t listen to it, don’t discuss it, if it is contrary to the rites don’t spend energy on it (72).
Regarding the relation of the honoring of traditional rites and government, Confucius adds that “enough food, enough weapons, and that the people stand by their word” (74) is sufficient for governing justly and harmoniously. This standard of appropriate action relative to one’s standing in society is furthered by Confucius when he raises the contrary hypothesis where governors acted as something other than governors: “...if the prince be not prince; minister not minister; father not father; son not son, although there is grain can I manage to eat it all?” (75). Through this example, we see how the obligation of moral character and acting appropriately (i.e., without excess) extends from the individual who observes tradition, to the father in a household, and to the individual who holds public office.
Books 10-12 Analysis
Confucius shows how the moral requirements of “manhood” are common to individuals and to the observation of death and funerals, as well as to those who hold a position within government. Through Confucius’s narration of the life of Kung-tze , he provides an image of the moral character of the one who possesses manhood: acting always out of respect for one’s friends and for cultural traditions (i.e., assuming the duties of carrying out a friend’s funeral and respectfully inhabiting temples and courts) and always in accord with what is appropriate for each setting, and never desiring more than what is required (i.e., never taking more meat than what is appropriate to the portion of rice he is allotted).
In Book 11, Confucius outlines how the traits of respect and reverence, whether in death or in politics, are the characteristics of the moral individual who acts appropriately with respect to what is called for by various situations. For as he says, “A state is managed with ceremony” (70).
Lastly, in Book 12, Confucius synthesizes all these points through the following example: “...if the prince be not prince; minister not minister; father not father; son not son, although there is grain can I manage to eat it all?” (75). Thus, manhood is said to belong to the one who acts appropriately in every situation relative to their station in life, whether they be a son or father, a governor or citizen, in public office or at a funeral of a friend or loved one. Manhood, as we see, comes to be defined by the measured response of an individuals who respect their social standing and that of others around them.
