過ぎたるは尚及ばざるが如し sugitaru wa nao oyobazaru ga gotoshi Going too far is as bad as falling short
This is a philological study of 過猶不及 (sugitaru wa nao oyobazaru ga gotoshi), the closing words of an exchange in the Analects rendered going too far is as bad as falling short. It follows the line from Confucius's answer to a disciple's question through its Japanese reading in print and its English translators, and finds that the proverb made from it narrows to a warning against excess alone, where the canon holds both faults equal.
Abstract
過猶不及, going too far is as bad as falling short, are the last four words of an exchange in the Analects: a disciple asks Confucius to judge which of two students is the better, one who goes too far and one who falls short, and the Master refuses to rank them, since both faults are the same. This study follows the line from that exchange through a Meiji vernacular canon and its schoolbook use to a Japanese proverb, and sets out its English translators from Legge in 1861 to Waley in 1938. It finds that the proverb made from the line, in Japanese use, narrows to a warning against excess alone, where the canon holds both faults equal.
Overview
The sense. The Japanese dictionaries draw one distinction and it is the whole history. As a passage of the Analects, the line teaches the mean, 中庸: the two faults are equal, and the questioner who thought excess the better one is corrected [1]. As a proverb in Japanese use, 故事成語を知る辞典 says, 「行きすぎ」を戒める意味で用いられるのがふつうです, it is ordinarily used to warn against going too far: the shortfall half is dropped and only the excess is scolded, which is what Fukuzawa Yukichi does with it and what the variant 及ばざるに如かず makes explicit [2]. The same dictionary offers a reading of the passage itself worth keeping: the disciple who asked, Zigong, was a man of great talent who made a fortune in trade, and the Master's answer may have been aimed at him [2]. The canon line itself keeps the balanced form, and a reader who knows only the proverb's use has half the line.
The words. Four Chinese characters, 過猶不及, and a Japanese sentence of eleven that reads them aloud. 過 is to go past, and 過ぎたる is what has gone too far. 猶 is still, just as much, and in the Japanese reading tradition this one character is read twice: once as なお, as much, and again at the end of the sentence as ごとし, is like. 不及 is not reaching, 及ばざる, falls short. So the Japanese says: having gone too far is just like not having reached. One trap in the first word: in modern Japanese 過ぎた can also mean past, as in 過ぎた事, what is over and done. Nothing in this line means that, and no translator has ever read it so.
The text in English. The English begins with Legge in 1861; the mid-century proverb collections render the Japanese proverb, and every translator of the Analects since keeps the two faults equal.
The historical record
The Analects, book eleven (先進). A disciple asks the Master to compare two others: 子貢問：「師與商也孰賢？」子曰：「師也過，商也不及。」曰：「然則師愈與？」子曰：「過猶不及。」 James Legge, whose 1861 translation is printed beside the Chinese at the Chinese Text Project: Zi Gong asked which of the two, Shi or Shang, was the superior. The Master said, "Shi goes beyond the due mean, and Shang does not come up to it." "Then," said Zi Gong, "the superiority is with Shi, I suppose." The Master said, "To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short." [1] The four characters are the last four words of this exchange, and the exchange is what gives them their edge: the questioner assumes that doing too much is the better fault, and the Master refuses the premise.
1872–1876. Fukuzawa Yukichi, An Encouragement of Learning (学問のすゝめ). The Japanese dictionaries' first modern example of the line in use, and it is already a proverb with no Confucius attached: 過ぎたるはなお及ばざるがごとしとは、すなわち弊害と本色と相反対するを評したる語なり。たとえば食物の要は身体を養うに在りといえども、これを過食すればかえってその栄養を害するがごとし, "going too far is as bad as falling short" is a saying about how a thing's harm and its true nature oppose each other: food exists to nourish the body, yet eat too much and it damages the nourishment it gives [2].
1907. 大江文城, The Confucian Scriptures (儒教聖典), a Meiji canon in Japanese. The passage as a Meiji reader met it, a vernacular reading followed by the original and the chapter name: 子貢問ひけらく、師と商とは孰れが賢れるかと。子のたまはく、師や過ぎ、商は及ばずと。曰く、然らば師は愈れるかと。子のたまはく過ぎたるは猶ほ及ばざるが如きのみと。〔原文〕子貢問、師與商也孰賢。子曰、師也過、商也不及。曰、然則師愈與。子曰、過猶不及。((先進)) [3] The reading ends のみ, only: it is only like falling short, no better.
1901 and 1940. A grammar and a commentary. A middle-school Japanese grammar of 1901 prints the line, without comment, as a specimen sentence for the construction が如し [4]; a 1940 commentary on the imperial rescript to students uses it to define 中, the mean: 中とは一方に偏せざることで、論語に「過ぎたるは猶及ばざるが如し」とあります, the mean is not leaning to one side; as the Analects says, going too far is as bad as falling short [5]. Between those two dates the line is in some 240 books the National Diet Library has digitized.
The dictionaries today. デジタル大辞泉: 《「論語」先進から》何事でもやりすぎることはやり足りないことと同じようによくない [6]. ことわざを知る辞典: 度が過ぎたものは、足りないものと同様によくない。不十分なのも困るが、過剰なものには弊害があり、物事にはほどよさが大切である, with the English equivalent Moderation in all things [6]. 故事成語を知る辞典 tells the story of the two disciples and adds two variant forms, one of which, 過ぎたるは及ばざるに如かず, says that going too far is worse than falling short [2].
What is not a source. Nothing is set beside this line in the tradition; it is a canon line with an author, not a folk saying with parallels. The two variant forms in 故事成語を知る辞典 are Japanese reshapings of the same passage, not sources for it [2].
The saying in English
1861. James Legge, The Chinese Classics, volume 1, the Analects, book XI. To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short. Balanced, and beyond keeps the spatial image of 過 [1].
1938. Arthur Waley, The Analects of Confucius, book XI, section 15. Tzu-kung asked which was the better, Shih or Shang. The Master said, Shih goes too far and Shang does not go far enough. Tzu-kung said, If that is so, then Shih excels. The Master said, To go too far is as bad as not to go far enough. [7]
1958. Rokuo Okada, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, page 148. Sugitaru wa nao oyobazaru ga gotoshi. Overdone is as bad as underdone. Too much is as bad as too little. What is needed is the golden mean. This saying from the Confucian Analects appears in Benham's Book of Quotations as "Too much courtesy is discourtesy." "Too much of a good thing is good for nothing." "Abundance, like want, ruins a man." [8]
1965. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings. The variant with 如かず: Sugitaru wa oyobazaru ni shikazu: "Too much is worse than too little." (Lit., "It is best not to attain than to exceed.") English parallel: Too much spoileth, too little is nothing [9]. Buchanan's is the form 故事成語を知る辞典 gives as the variant that says worse, not as bad.
1979. D. C. Lau, Confucius: The Analects, Penguin, book XI, 16. Tzu-kung asked, 'Who is superior, Shih or Shang?' The Master said, 'Shih overshoots the mark; Shang falls short.' 'Does that mean that Shih is in fact better?' The Master said, 'There is little to choose between overshooting the mark and falling short.' [10]
1998. Roger T. Ames and Henry Rosemont, The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation, 11.16. Zigong inquired, "Who is of superior character (xian), Zizhang or Zixia?" The Master replied, "Zizhang oversteps the mark, and Zixia falls short of it." "Does this make Zizhang better?" asked Zigong. "One is as bad as the other," replied Confucius. [11]
2003. Edward Slingerland, Confucius: Analects, with Selections from Traditional Commentaries, page 117. Zigong asked, "Who is more worthy, Zizhang or Zixia?" The Master replied, "Zizhang overshoots the mark, while Zixia falls short of it." "Then can we say that Zizhang is better?" The Master replied, "Overshooting the mark is just as bad as falling short of it." His note: An alternate version of this story in the Record of Ritual makes it clear that the unspecified "mark" that Zizhang and Zixia are being measured against is the mean of ritual, and Huang Kan's gloss, Zizhang overshot the mark because his nature was overfull and disorderly … Zixia fell short because his nature was somewhat cold and detached [12].
Today. ことわざを知る辞典 gives Moderation in all things as the English equivalent, which is the proverb's sense rather than the line's [6]. The scroll's stored title, Let What Is Past Flow Away Downstream, renders no word of 過, 猶, 不 or 及; the description beneath it already reads Going too far is as bad as falling short, Waley's sentence in all but two words, and it is this rendering, not the title, that keeps what the line must keep: both faults named and called equal.
A reading
The line is a rebuke to a clever question, and it is balanced on purpose: the man who asked wanted to hear that too much beats too little, and was told they are the same. The Japanese proverb made of it leans, as proverbs do, toward the fault its users see more of, and the dictionaries say so honestly.
References
- 『論語』先進第十一, at the Chinese Text Project, with James Legge's translation of 1861. https://ctext.org/analects/xian-jin
- 「過ぎたるはなお及ばざるがごとし」, 故事成語を知る辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/過ぎたるはなお及ばざるがごとし-2236676
- 大江文城『儒教聖典』, 開発社, 1907. National Diet Library pid 753280, scans 87–88. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/753280/1/87
- 『中等国文典』第三巻, 1901. National Diet Library pid 994664, scan 46. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/994664/1/46
- 『青少年学徒ニ賜ハリタル勅語謹解』, 1940. National Diet Library pid 1100307, scan 28. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1100307/1/28
- 「過ぎたるは猶及ばざるが如し」, デジタル大辞泉 · ことわざを知る辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/過ぎたるは猶及ばざるが如し-541177
- Arthur Waley, translator, The Analects of Confucius, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1938, book XI, section 15. Internet Archive in.ernet.dli.2015.174971. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.174971
- Rokuo Okada, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, Japan Travel Bureau, Tokyo, 1958, p. 148.
- Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, University of Oklahoma Press, 1965, s.v. Sugitaru (the shelf copy's text layer shows no page number at the entry; the record gives the position).
- D. C. Lau, translator, Confucius: The Analects (Lun yü), Penguin, 1979, XI.16.
- Roger T. Ames and Henry Rosemont, Jr., The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation, Ballantine, 1998, 11.16.
- Edward Slingerland, translator, Confucius: Analects, with Selections from Traditional Commentaries, Hackett, 2003, 11.16, p. 117.