Saturday, January 15, 2011

Justice: the Potter's Wheel

I was reading Pound's tanslation of the Analects recently and came across this:

I have heard that men who have states or head families are not worried about fewness, but worried about fairness [potter's wheel ideogram: aliter as verb: worried about ruling justly], not worried about scarcity, but worried about disquiet. (XVI, p. 108, Pound's comment)

Beyond its general interest, and the topicality of the passage (more on that later), I was struck by the potter's wheel.

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