五蠹 ( 王力 古代汉语 Wang Li Classical Chinese )

[mouse]

I've taken the liberty of starting a new topic on Wang Li's book.

 

I'm not particularly good at Classical Chinese, so I'm going to ask a few probably obvious questions.

 

The 韩非子 excerpt is in 王力古代漢語（校訂重排本）第二冊 page 409.

 

I'm having a bit of trouble with the second line:

 

“夫離法者罪，而諸先生以文學取；犯禁者誅，而羣俠以私劒養。”

 

In particular this bit: “而諸先生以文學取；” Wang Li's gloss gives 諸先生 as the aforementioned 儒家, 文學 as the 學 of the aforementioned 古代文獻經典 and 取 as “錄用，被動用法” all of which is fine, but how to translate it? At the moment I've got "and Confucian scholars use the the study of written classics to appoint [people]." But I can't help but feel I could say, "and Confucian scholars use the written classics to study appointment." (appointment is a bit inelegant, but you see what I mean). I feel instinctively that Han Feizi would be likely to criticize Confucians because they don't appoint people to high positions because of their abilities, but based on their understanding of the classics, but it's hard for me to make that work using the original as a guide rather than my prior knowledge. Can anyone help me out?

[yvesc]

I'll take a plunge.

I don't quite understand what you mean, sounds like you are reading:

(以文)(學取) they study appointment based on learning

while it is

(以(文學))(取) they are selected based on their knowledge of classics.

your book does say 取 is 被動

and the next sentence is symmetrical

羣俠  (以(私劒))(養)

[ZhangJiang]

I think you missed the "被動用法" part. 取 here is to get appointed rather than appoint people. I think he's saying that the scholars get themselves appointed to high positions using the study of written classics when they are actually guilty of violating the law. I don't know if he's criticizing Confucians just based on this sentence. It depends on the background of his time and context of the article. So maybe your prior knowledge is actually helpful in this case?

[yvesc]

as I wrote, the book says 取 is 被動; and in the next sentence, the symmetrical 養 is also passive. The passage is all about rulers choosing confucians, whereas in fact the confucian ideas are opposed to the good application of the law (法).

 

I fear the OP is misparsing the sentence; and it's not about ability, but about ideology.

[mouse]

Ah yeah of course. Told you the questions would be obvious! Thanks for the help