5 stars for the content, but a star has to be subtracted for the horrible Legge translation. Some leeway has to be granted for how old the translation is; I can forgive the nonsensical transliteration system that makes it near impossible for even those familiar with Chinese to read the names fluently. I am also aware of the fact that Legge was a very intelligent man who had first-hand access to the (then still living) Confucian scholarly tradition, making his notes often times very valuable. What I can't forgive is his complete inability to write beautifully, or sometimes even competently, in English. His prose is full of oddly phrased sentences.

A sentence chosen at random: "*Other* men all have their brothers, I only have not."

Legge's translation is full of sentences like this. Bizarre italics (this sentence is actually one of the few it makes some sense in), and just strangely worded sentences throughout the book. Early on I wondered if it was just a bad edition, with typos and words left out. But it's apparently just how he wrote.

Still, the book has the full Chinese text which is useful if you know any Chinese at all, and the translation is surprisingly accurate, compared to many Chinese to English translations of comparable age. ( )

Over the past few weeks I have been reading, considering and meditating upon the classic translation of Confucius by James Legge entitled, Confucian Analects, The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean. All works distilled over centuries from the teachings of Confucius who lived from 551 to 479 B.C.

Elias Canetti summed it up neatly: "The Analects of Confucius are the oldest complete intellectual and spiritual portrait of a man. It strikes one as a modern book." It also strikes this reader as a very un-western book and difficult to decipher. In spite of that there is a lot that Confucius' thought has in common with the wisdom of the west. One of the most famous doctrines is that of "reciprocity".

15.24 Zigong asked: "Is there any single word that could guide one's entire life?" The Master said: "Should it not be reciprocity? What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others." (Simon Leys trans., p 77)

That is complementary to the more familiar "Golden Rule" that says one should "do unto others as one would have them do unto you." From reading the aphorisms one comes away with an appreciation for culture, family and what seems to be a conservative view of man. It also is a very humane, even humanistic, view of society.
Apparently this was just what was needed during the lifetime of Confucius as there was great change in his society. He lived during a period of acute cultural crisis. Confucius, like thinkers in the West from Socrates to Gandhi, demonstrated a confidence that in turn drew followers to him and his thought. We can thank them for what little of Confucius' thought that we have. In these books and fragments we have the distillation of his thought and it impresses me as worth meditating on. It is a treasure of humanity. ( )