A.D. 208, a descendant of Confucius in the 20th generation.
Ssŭ is supposed to be a picture of quartering (see title).
Sui is composed of 步 pu to step, to walk, and 戌 hsü a horary character as phonetic. It originally meant 木星 mu hsing wood-star (lines 66, 52), i.e. the planet Jupiter, also known to the Chinese as the year-star from its revolution in twelve years which was reckoned as one great year. It is now colloquially used as a year of one's life or age (line 33), and is classed under radical 止 chih to stop.
| 38. | 能 | 讓 | 梨 | could yield the (bigger) pears. | |
| Nêng2 | jang4 | li2 | |||
| Able | yield | pear |
Nêng see line 34.
Jang is composed of 言 yen words and 襄 hsiang which is an important phonetic (see line 82).
Li is composed of 木 mu wood (line 66) as radical and 利 li sharp as phonetic. [The story runs that when K'ung Jung at four years of age was asked why he chose all the small pears and left the bigger ones for the rest of the family he replied, "I am a small boy, so I take the small pears." Eitel wrongly translates "was able to yield up his pears (to his brothers)."]
| 39. | 弟 | 於 | 長 | To behave as a younger brother towards elders, | |
| T'i4 | yu2 | chang3 | |||
| Fraternal | towards | grow |
T'i to behave as a younger brother is a verbal sense developed from the original sound and signification of the character read ti4 = younger brother (line 100). For convenience' sake the former is sometimes written 悌, with 心 hsin heart as radical.
Yü see line 35.
Chang means to grow, one grown, an elder. The original word
