Original source spelling · punctuation belongs to the digital witness · pronunciation tools follow your language focus.
夫樂者、樂也，人情之所必不免也
Music is joy: it is something human feelings cannot altogether escape.
zimai · AI-assisted editorial notes · Editorial pilot · not independently reviewed · CC BY-SA 4.0A route through this passage
68 Han characters · 32 distinct forms · 11 units separated by the witness’s punctuation
- Establish the frame. Read the surrounding chapter. Who speaks, what is being discussed, and which earlier words supply the context?
- Test one unit.
夫樂者、樂也，
Mark a possible predicate and its participants. Record what you have supplied rather than found explicitly in the text. - Reconstruct the argument. Connect the units in your own words. Where does a description, question, contrast, or consequence depend on your interpretation?
Investigate 8 written forms in this passage
Matched by spelling. These are candidate reading procedures, not assigned grammatical analyses.
Watch recurrence: 不 × 7 樂 × 6 人 × 4 能 × 4 之 × 3 無 × 3. Repetition of a graph need not mean repetition of a sense.
Computed from this exact witness · 1 contextual editorial excerpt also available. The guide is a set of reading prompts, not a translation. Sources & methods
Make this passage yours.
Use the reading guide above, build your interpretation, then test what you can recover. Your notes and schedule stay on this device.
1 · Explain it in your own words
2 · Recover the wording
Select a source unit, then hide the passage and reconstruct it. This checks textual recall, not understanding.
3 · Explain, then revisit
Why should the two written instances of 樂 not receive an identical mechanical gloss?
Compare the editorial answer
One names music and the other its relation to enjoyment in the argument.
zimai editorial draft · not independently reviewed. Applies to 夫樂者、樂也，人情之所必不免也
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Read this beside…
Each connection states its purpose. Comparisons are editorial learning aids; shared wording alone does not prove influence.
Argument contrastA theory of music beside the received prefaceXunzi connects music with human enjoyment; the received Great Preface describes feeling becoming sound. The comparison is between two explanatory prose layers. It must not be labeled as a direct statement made by every Shijing poem.
Shared wording
Computed exact phrases in the pinned witnesses. These links do not assign a sense or assert borrowing.
莊子 · 大宗師第六形而不為仁，長於上古而不為老，覆載天地刻彫眾形而不為巧，此所遊已。」
莊子 · 天道第十三形而不為仁，長於上古而不為壽，覆載天地刻彫眾形而不為巧，此之謂天樂。
荀子 · 禮論篇第十九則不能無何也？」曰：「人生而有欲，欲而不得，則不能無求；求而無度量分界，則不能不爭；爭則亂，亂則窮。
Follow a connection
Shared teaching construction · an editorial learning connection, not evidence of common authorship or origin.
論語 · Separate the topic from the comment夫子至於是邦也論語 · Separate the topic from the comment禮之用，和為貴論語 · Focus on what an action concerns七十而從心所欲，不踰矩論語 · Separate the topic from the comment回也不愚Edition, source, and reuse
- Work
- 荀子 · Xunzi
- Attribution
- Traditionally associated with Xun Kuang; the received collection contains multiple textual layers.
- Digital witness
- Kanseki Repository · KR3a0002 · base edition tls
- Contributors
- Kanseki Repository (Kanripo) contributors; upstream base-edition labels retained in each original file.
- Source position
- KR3a0002_020.txt, lines 14–25. XUN 20:1:1, Beida p.332; Knoblock 3:80
- Version
e18a27621ef434940a368defd29e00eee205dfd2- Reuse
- CC BY-SA 4.0. Text extraction and teaching additions share this licence.
- Text policy
- Source spelling and punctuation retained. Encoding headers, page markers, paragraph markers, whitespace, and leading section numbers are removed from the reading view. No silent script conversion or textual correction.
- Teaching
- zimai · AI-assisted editorial notes. English renderings are excerpt-level reading aids, not a full published translation. Editorial pilot · not independently reviewed.
Source-file SHA-256: 5c777d23004915637eaf2c9a63a1884b871f970d5d8bffadb3ce6568bdbe3453. A source comment that cites a translator is an upstream reference, not the attribution of a translation imported here.