This banner text can have markup. Search the history of over billion web pages on the Internet. Full text of " Mengzi - Mencius " See other formats pg? For otherpurposes, apartfiromfiair use, Copyright is not waived. Wlien I was teaching, I found it convenient to provide students with translations that fit the terminology and interpretations I would use in class, and, of course, the expense of these materials to students was much less than the cost of books.
In later years, I posted course materials Online, reducing expense further. Online materials allowed open public access, and I received many messages indicating that the materials were being consulted, especially by teachers. No one translation is definitive, and scholars who have devoted more specialized study to the Mencius than I have published excellent translations in book form that I would recommend to anyone with a serious interest in the text.
I have consulted these translations throughout, though my interpretations sometimes differ, and I use somewhat different vocabulary. In addition, I have found the rather idiosyncratic translation by W. Dobson to add insights in a number of cases.
Any translation of the Mencius is ultimately indebted to the Chinese commentarial tradition. The earliest commentary that exists for the text is the richly detailed work of Zhao Qi CE , and all scholars are reliant on Zhao for many identifications and explanations that no later writer could have supplied. Some of these larger issues are outlined in brief in entries of the Glossary, appended to this translation.
Although never granted quite the explicit homage that was given to the Analects Lunyu among Confucian works, nor, perhaps, as admired as the two great Daoist texts, the Dao de jing and Zhuangzi, the ideas and arguments in the Mencius have a clarity and literary power that gave them extraordinary impact over time.
