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On the expression fu yen

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

D. C. Lau
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Extract

The ‘Analects of Confucius’ 1/13 records a saying of Yu Tzu which begins as follows:

The meaning of yen k'efu yeh has never, to my knowledge, been satisfactorily explained. Any acceptable explanation, it seems to me, must furnish satis-factory answers to three questions. (1) What does the wordfu mean in this context ? (2) What is the construction of the sentence ? (3) What is the point of the saying ?

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , June 1973 , pp. 324 - 333
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1973

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References

1 Arabic numerals in square brackets indicate passages in which some form of the expression u yen occurs. For abbreviations, see p. 333.

2 This comment, in a slightly truncated form, is quoted in the TPYL: (430.2a). Although the comment is unattributed, it is often assumed that the author was Cheng Hsuan See, for instance, LTCY, 1.19b.

3 The only commentator who seemed to have accepted this as the intended meaning of the Chi chieh commentator was the author of the Han Li lun yü pi chieh He rejects this by saying that fu did not mean being fickle and without constancy. (quoted in LYCS, p. 45). He is takingfan fu to mean not simply ‘upsetting, overturning’, but ‘constantly chopping and changing’, a meaning it often has in early literature.

4

5 Restored on the authority of the parallel in Mo tzu, chapter 47, quoted further on p. 328.

6 A gloss, as we have seen, suggested by Huang K'an for fu.

7 It is difficult to know what shun means precisely. The translation is tentative.

8 The Erh ya gives (EYCS, 1.13b); and the Mao commentary to Ode 33 gives, (SC, 2.4b).

9 This use of fu, meaning ‘to repeat’, is related to its meaning of ‘again’, and is very common in ancient literature. In chapter 1 of the Kuan tzu we find: (KT, 1.3b) ‘That the ruler does not practise what cannot be repeated is because he does not want to practise deception on the people’. Again, in the Han fei tzu we find the following: (1) [omit ‘Similarly with starting enterprises. Do only what can be repeated and your enterprises will rarely fail’; (2) (HFT, 15.1a) ‘I f one treats the people with deceit, one may get away with it for a time, but one can never repeat it afterwards’.