一孔录The video for this chapter is still in production. For now this page gives the original text, the facsimile page, a working translation and the commentary; the full reading follows when the video is out.
子張曰：書云：高宗諒陰，三年不言。何謂也？子曰：何必高宗，古之人皆然。君薨，百官總己以聽於冢宰三年。Zizhang said: The Documents say, 'Gaozong, in the mourning hut, did not speak for three years.' What does this mean? The Master said: Why only Gaozong? The ancients were all so. When the ruler died, all the officials attended to their duties and took orders from the chief minister for three years.
What this chapter says
一孔按：子张问高宗居丧三年不言。孔子说古人都这样，君死后百官各总己职，听命于冢宰三年。有冢宰统摄，国不会乱。常有人问“高宗居丧三年不说话，国家为什么不会乱”，上面是一孔录的回答。
Yikonglu's reading of this chapter is in Chinese for now; the English version comes with the video.
白Plain Chinese
子张问，书上说高宗居丧三年不言，是什么意思，孔子说，何止高宗，古人都这样，国君死后，百官各守自己的职务，听命于冢宰三年。
Draft plain-Chinese rendering following Zhu Xi; it will be checked when the chapter is covered.
看Watch this chapter
The video for this chapter is in production and will appear here. Follow Yikonglu to see it first:YouTubeBilibili
Connections
Relationship map of the whole book · The Analects, AI-reconstructed edition (PDF)
Close reading and checking
For readers who want to go deeper or check our work: key words in the commentary, what other commentators say, textual variants, the commentaries in their own words with facsimile pages, pronunciation and corrections. Tap a heading to open it.
常The common reading
高宗居丧三年不说话，国家为什么不会乱？
注Key words in the commentary
高宗，商王武丁也。谅阴，天子居丧之名，未详其义。
核Zhu Xi's commentary, line by line
Zhu Xi's own words on each line of this chapter, each checked against the base-edition page. Other commentators are added when the chapter is covered. About this edition
| Line | Quoted text | Page |
|---|---|---|
| 子张曰：书云：高 | “高宗，商王武丁也。谅阴，天子居丧之名，未详其义。” | page 203—204 |
| 君薨，百官总己以 | “言君薨，则诸侯亦然。总己，谓总摄己职。冢宰，大宰也。百官听于冢宰，故君得以三年不言也。” | page 203—204 |
| 君薨，百官总己以 | “位有贵贱，而生于父母无以异者，故三年之丧，自天子达于庶人。子张非疑此也，殆以为人君三年不言，则臣下无所禀令，祸乱或由以起也。孔子告以听于冢宰，则祸乱非所忧矣。” | page 203—204 |
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 七
“云子張曰云云者，高宗，殷中興王也，名武丁。”……
Compared with Zhu Xi
| Commentary | Point | Relation | Confidence | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 钱穆《论语新解》 | 谅阴字训 | differs | fairly sure | 钱取梁闇为居丧庐之形制，朱谓天子居丧之名未详字义。均以丧三年百官听冢宰说明非武丁独有。 |
Found an error in this chapter? Email us; once checked, it goes on the errata page under your username: 
