Sinographs 102 · Chapter 12

Making it happen

To make someone do something, Literary Chinese needs no “make … do” scaffolding: 使 X V — send X to V, cause X to V — one word does it all. Its natural theater is statecraft, so the chapter hires the state:

Sign	Key	Says	Means	How to see it
使	send	shǐ	to send, employ, cause	the person-sign beside an officer with his tally — to commission
事	work	shì	affair, work; to serve	a hand gripping a tally-staff — the officer's job in his fist
國	state	guó	state, country	a wall around an armed inner sign — the enclosure is the state
千	thousand	qiān	thousand	a slanting figure, one stroke through — a person made a count
公	duke	gōng	duke; public, common	八 "apart" over a private enclosure — what is opened to all; the title followed
世	generation	shì	generation; the age	three tens tied into one sign — thirty years, parent to child

千 quietly repairs the number ladder — you have had one through ten, a hundred, and the myriad, but never the thousand between.

The causative, paid in full

The little clause an earlier chapter had to box now reads whole — and shows the pattern:

使民以時。shǐ mín yǐ shí"put the people to work in the right season" — 使 + 民 + (implied) labor: cause-the-people-to-work, with 以時 hitching the when. Call them after the harvest, never during it

君使臣以▢，臣事君以▢。jūn shǐ chén yǐ lǐ, chén shì jūn yǐ zhōng"the lord employs his ministers with courtesy; the ministers serve their lord with loyalty" — the deal that holds a court together, stated in both directions: 使 sends downward, 事 serves upward. The boxes are "courtesy" and "loyalty"

Analects 1.5 and 3.19. urn:nabu:kanripo:KR1h0004:003:20a · license: attribution.

The whole saying

And with 千 and 國 in hand, the full sentence 使民以時 closes — Confucius on running a real country, end to end:

道千▢之國，▢事而▢，▢用而▢人，使民以時。dào qiān shèng zhī guó, jìng shì ér xìn, jié yòng ér ài rén, shǐ mín yǐ shí"to lead a state of a thousand chariots: take the work seriously and keep your word; spend little and care for people; and call the people to labor only in the right season" — a whole theory of government in fifteen characters: diligence, honesty, thrift, care, timing. The boxes are "chariot", "respectfully", "keep-faith", "sparingly", "care-for"

Analects 1.5, whole. urn:nabu:kanripo:KR1h0004:001:5a · license: attribution.

Held in common, knowable for ages

公 pays the oldest box in this course, and 世 answers a question about the far future:

大道之行也，天下為公。dà dào zhī xíng yě, tiān xià wéi gōng"when the great Way walked the world, all under heaven belonged to everyone" — the golden-age sentence, box-free at last: 公 as "common to all," the duke's title grown from the open, public thing

十世可知也。shí shì kě zhī yě"can ten generations hence be known?" — a student asking whether three hundred years of future are readable. Yes, comes the answer: each age keeps most of the last one's ways, so the pattern carries — a hundred generations are readable

Records of Ritual (Liyun) and Analects 2.23. urn:nabu:kanripo:KR1d0052:009:1a · license: attribution.

Where this leaves you

The causative runs the state, the state runs on seasons, and the sentence that owed you three chapters of boxes has paid every one. Next: likeness — good as water, and each other.