一孔录子曰：道不行，乘桴浮于海。从我者，其由与？子路闻之喜。子曰：由也好勇过我，无所取材。The Master said: If the Way does not prevail, I will board a raft and float out to sea. The one who would follow me would be You, perhaps? Zilu heard this and was glad. The Master said: You loves courage more than I do, but has nothing by which to measure things.
Tap any sentence of the original to copy it with its source.
白Plain Chinese
孔子说：道行不通的话，我就乘个木筏漂到海上去。肯跟我走的，大概是仲由吧？子路听了很高兴。孔子说：仲由好勇胜过我，只是不懂得裁度事理。
A plain modern-Chinese rendering following Yikonglu's reading.
常The common reading
Read as Confucius really wanting to retire overseas; or wu suo qu cai (无所取材) as “nowhere to get timber”.
注Key words in the commentary
“桴，筏也” — fu is a raft; hao (好) in the falling tone; “材，与裁同，古字借用” — cai is the same as cai “to measure”, an ancient borrowed character; “子路勇于义，故谓其能从己，皆假设之言耳。子路以为实然……讥其不能裁度事理，以适于义也” — Zilu was brave for rightness, so he was said to be able to follow; these were all hypothetical words. Zilu took them literally, and was chided for being unable to weigh the matter to fit rightness.
家What other commentators say
The Cheng brothers: “浮海之叹，伤天下之无贤君也” — the sigh about floating out to sea is grief that the world has no worthy ruler.
读How Yikonglu reads it
Going out to sea is a sigh, a figure of speech; Zilu took it literally, with courage to spare but no sense of measuring what is fitting. Today: someone in the group chat says offhand they'll quit and travel the world, and someone else packs a bag that very night.
家Other commentaries
Our base text is Zhu Xi's Collected Commentaries (above). Here are other commentaries side by side: for old commentaries, the first line of the sub-commentary with a link to the woodblock scan; for modern editions, one short quoted translation for comparison. The “compared with Zhu Xi” notes are written by Yikonglu, not quoted.
皇侃《论语义疏》Liang dynasty · 1750 Japanese woodblock edition · juan 三
“云道不行乘桴浮於海者，桴者，編竹木也。”……
Compared with Zhu Xi
| Commentary | Point | Relation | Confidence | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 钱穆《论语新解》 | 材 | differs | fairly sure | 钱主取造桴的竹木，言无所凭借行道；朱取裁度之裁，谓子路不能裁度事理适义。 |
核Check every citation
Every commentary line quoted in the video: the original wording, who said it, and the page in the base edition. “Paraphrase” marks our summary, not the commentator's words. About this edition
| Quoted text | Source | Page |
|---|---|---|
| “桴，筏也……材，与裁同，古字借用……浮海之叹，伤天下之无贤君也” | 朱注；朱注引程子 | page 64 |
| “子路勇于义，故谓其能从己，皆假设之言耳。子路以为实然，而喜夫子之与己，故夫子美其勇，而讥其不能裁度事理，以适于义也” | 朱注引程子（续，程颐） | page 64 |
音Pronunciation
| Character | In the line | Read as |
|---|---|---|
| 桴 | 乘桴 | fú |
| 乘 | 乘桴 | chéng |
| 从 | 从我者 | cóng |
| 好 | 好勇 | hào |
| 与 | 其由与 | yú |
| 材 | 无所取材 | cái |
页Pages of the base edition
Yikonglu, Analects 公冶长第五 5.6 “If the Way does not prevail, I will take a raft out to sea”, https://yikonglu.com/en/lunyu/gong-ye-chang/6.html, version 2026-11-05.Last checked: 2026-11-05. Changes are logged on theerrata page.
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