Meaning and dialogue in Analect 3.8 (NK)

 Zixia asked,”[An ode says,]


    ‘Her artful smile, with its alluring dimples,

    Her beautiful eyes,

    The unadorned upon which to paint.’


What does this mean?”

     The Master said, “The application of colors comes only after a suitable unadorned background is present.”

     Zixia said, “So it is the rites that come after?”

     The Master said, “It is you, Zixia, who has awakened me to the meaning of these lines!  It is only with someone like you that I can begin to discuss the Odes.”

                            Analects, 3.8.


What is the nature of Zixia’s performance in this dialogue that so impresses Confucius?  Zixia asks (or perhaps challenges) Confucius to interpret the poem. Good poems are difficult to interpret.  There is something about making meaning elusive, making it difficult to pin down, and multi-layered that is at the very heart of good poetry.  In fact, this characteristic of poetry suggests that to go searching for its meaning may be to miss the point.  Nonetheless, Confucius does offer an interpretation, and a very good one at that.  The “smile” itself is “artful”, the “dimples” themselves are “alluring”, all of this “background” must be present in order to begin to add color.  This isn’t a blank slate.  This is something that is suitably unadorned.


Zixia is keen enough to see that Confucius’ response is not about art, or beauty, or even poetry, but about the cultivation and refinement of virtue.  That it doesn’t just begin from scratch per se but is applied to a ready and appropriate canvas.  Zixia says, “So it is the rites that come after?”, and one wonders if there isn’t a hint of gentle sarcasm in that question.  After all, hasn't Confucius gone to great lengths to impart to his students the importance of meticulously keeping the rites?  Furthermore, what exactly is Zixia suggesting the rites come after?  What comes before the rites?  He doesn’t explicitly say.  Perhaps it is what is unspoken in Zixia’s response that excites and awakens Confucius to the “meaning” of the poem.  Perhaps Zixia has been playing the role of teacher and student here and that is how he has been able to make the kind of conceptual leap that Confucius so values in his students, as can be seen in the parallel Analect 1.15.  That is, by anticipating Confucius he is able to ask the right questions and this is what makes him such a great companion for discussing the Odes, a text whose meanings are elusive and require a nimble reader.

Comments

  1. Krishnan VenkateshJanuary 30, 2022 at 9:06 PM

    Nicely expressed. You're right to ask what "come after" might mean -- surely not chronologically come after, but "secondary"? In other translations: something like, "you must first have a white/plain ground" -- receptivity, openness, humility, lack of prejudice?

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