Zhuangzi · 人間世第四
Read the witness. Inspect a construction. Follow the evidence.
Original source spelling · punctuation belongs to the digital witness · pronunciation tools follow your language focus.
A route through this passage
32 Han characters · 24 distinct forms · 8 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.
方今之時，
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 4 written forms in this passage
Matched by spelling. These are candidate reading procedures, not assigned grammatical analyses.
Watch recurrence: 乎 × 4 之 × 3 莫 × 2 知 × 2 已 × 2. Repetition of a graph need not mean repetition of a sense.
Computed from this exact witness · Contextual interpretation awaits editorial review. 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
Without the source in front of you, explain the passage’s main point and one choice you made in reading it. Then reopen the text and check the evidence.
Rate your understanding yourself. These reminders use a simple schedule; they do not certify mastery.
Study controls are loading. Reading prompts and source links work without JavaScript.
Shared wording
Computed exact phrases in the pinned witnesses. These links do not assign a sense or assert borrowing.
莊子 · 養生主第三方今之時見无非牛者。三年之後，未嘗見全牛也。方今之時，臣以神遇而不以目視，
莊子 · 則陽第二十五已乎已乎恃其知之所不知而後知，可不謂大疑乎！已乎已乎！且无所逃。此所謂然與，然乎？
莊子 · 寓言第二十七已乎已乎人乃以心服，而不敢蘁立，定天下之定。已乎已乎！吾且不得及彼乎！」
Follow a connection
Shared teaching construction · an editorial learning connection, not evidence of common authorship or origin.
Select a character to find its other occurrences in these texts.
Edition, source, and reuse
- Work
- 莊子 · Zhuangzi
- Attribution
- Traditionally associated with Zhuang Zhou; the received collection includes multiple voices and layers.
- Digital witness
- Kanseki Repository · KR5c0126 · base edition CHANT
- Contributors
- Kanseki Repository (Kanripo) contributors; upstream base-edition labels retained in each original file.
- Source position
- KR5c0126_004.txt, lines 755–762. ZHUANG 4.7.2 Guo Qingfan 1i3; Wang Shumin 167; Fang Yong 139; Chen Guying 141
- Version
abb9cd323dfd9520894b56b3b8ba2ec0ea50554f- 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: 14fbc8989be973a146db7e9cd417498b95979a31e6ddab1fa37af97e38207fd8. A source comment that cites a translator is an upstream reference, not the attribution of a translation imported here.