Preface: This article was completed in collaboration with ChatGPT.

In 484 BCE, Confucius ended his long journey among the various states and returned to Lu. He was about sixty-eight years old at the time. Political power in Lu, however, was still firmly in the hands of the Three Huan families. The ruler of Lu remained in name, and the ancestral temples, ritual system, and regnal calendar continued to function, but the real power to mobilize troops, control finances, and decide appointments had for a long time been monopolized by the so-called “Three Huans.” These were three powerful lineages descended from Duke Huan of Lu: the Jisun, the Mengsun, and the Shusun. They were not temporary figures such as “imperial in-laws” or “strong ministers,” but families that, through generations of accumulation, had effectively turned the state structure itself into their private asset. Land, dependents, private armies, granaries, and kinship networks all belonged to them; the ruler had instead become a mere ornament of legitimacy attached to their power. Key offices in Lu were long held in rotation or divided among these three houses; the army in practice obeyed the families rather than the ruler, and fiscal revenues flowed first into family granaries before being symbolically remitted to the state treasury. Against this background, Confucius did not attempt to re-enter the core of political power. He was treated only with ceremonial respect, as a kind of “elder of the state,” a symbolic figure without actual administrative responsibilities.

The period from 484 to 482 BCE marks the most concentrated phase of Confucius’s late-life teaching. He lived for long stretches in Lu, taught students in a private capacity, and repeatedly discussed the Poetry (Shi), Documents (Shu), Ritual (Li), and Music (Yue), as well as the rights and wrongs of historical figures. These discussions revolved around close analysis of specific texts, specific people, and specific actions. Much of the speech and conduct later remembered and transmitted by his students dates from this period, making it one of the main chronological backgrounds of the Analects. At the same time, this was also the phase in which Confucius systematically organized the ancient textual tradition: through oral explanation, selection, omission, ordering, and interpretation, he gradually fixed the boundaries of what would later be regarded as the “classics.”

Poetry, that is, the Book of Songs, is the earliest extant anthology of poetry in China. Its composition and compilation span from the early Western Zhou to the mid–Spring and Autumn period, roughly covering several centuries from the eleventh to the sixth century BCE. What Poetry records is not grand epic narrative, but experiences closely tied to everyday life and the margins of politics: agriculture, marriage, separation, military service, resentment, disappointment, loyalty, and imbalance. These texts originally existed in very specific contexts of use—some as local songs, some for ancestral temples and banquets, others for diplomatic or court occasions. Traditionally, Poetry is divided into three categories: Airs (feng), Elegances (ya), and Hymns (song). The Airs are largely local in origin and reflect grassroots emotions, while the Elegances and Hymns are associated with the royal house, the aristocracy, and ancestral worship, serving to affirm order and articulate legitimacy.

Confucius’s approach to discussing Poetry is somewhat like a hybrid of modern reading comprehension, psychoanalysis, and emotional-management advice. He did not treat the Book of Songs as a purely aesthetic object, but as a socially legible mechanism for emotional expression. He emphasized that “poetry can arouse, observe, unite, and express resentment,” with “resentment” being particularly important—not rebellion, but dissatisfaction that is permitted to exist, yet restrained and encoded. On the one hand, poetry serves as material for understanding the human mind: through the selection, quotation, and interpretation of poems, one can judge a person’s circumstances, stance, and sense of proportion. On the other hand, it functions as a training tool for expression, teaching people how to speak within unequal relationships—how to let genuine feelings be perceived without being judged as out of control or threatening. From a modern perspective, this way of thinking feels quite strange: emotional expression seems instinctive to us today. Yet in antiquity it was considered inappropriate and required careful discussion of what could be expressed and how it should be expressed properly. To me, this seems excessively fussy—perhaps because I am not a native of Lu.

Documents, usually called the Book of Documents or Classic of Documents, is a compilation centered on political speech and historical records, with its contents largely formed between the Western Zhou and the early Spring and Autumn period. It is not a continuous narrative history, but a collection of texts produced in different contexts: royal commands, oaths, proclamations, covenants, and explanations of government affairs. These texts originally served real political operations rather than later notions of historiography. The language of Documents is highly formal, restrained, and abstract, with almost no emotional expression and very little reference to personal feelings. Its concern is: who is speaking from what position, whether what is said “holds up,” and whether it conforms to the political and moral boundaries recognized at the time. In other words, Documents records certain political actions and behaviors of earlier rulers and important figures, while Confucius and his students dissected these actions and motives, discussing their reasonableness—somewhat like news commentators, except the news is ancient.

Ritual deals with even more detailed rules. For example, the following passage:

“If a feudal lord dies while traveling and dies in a lodging place, his body is returned to his state. If he dies on the road, it is placed by the left hub of his carriage, and a token is used to summon the soul. The bier is furnished with pendants; black cloth is used for the lower curtains and plain silk brocade for the roof, and it proceeds onward. Upon reaching the gate of the ancestral temple, the wall is not dismantled; one enters directly to the place of temporary interment, while the bier alone is removed outside the temple gate. If a grand officer or a gentleman dies on the road, the same procedure is followed at the left hub of the carriage to summon the soul. If he dies in a lodging place, he is returned home. A grand officer’s bier is made of cloth and removed at the home, then transferred to a different cart, brought in through the gate to below the eastern steps, unloaded there, lifted from the steps, and carried to the place of interment. A gentleman’s bier uses reeds for the roof and rush mats for the curtains.”

Thus, the first function of Ritual in the classroom is to mark boundaries. Confucius repeatedly used historical and contemporary examples to ask: what counts as “usurpation”? Is it merely similarity of form, or a mismatch of position? If a feudal lord may do something, may a grand officer do it? If a grand officer may do it, may a retainer? The focus is not the action itself, but who performs it from what position. Confucius did not deny the existence of exceptions, but he was extremely wary of turning exceptions into norms. He repeatedly discussed with his students whether breaking ritual in a crisis was done to preserve the overall order, or merely for the convenience of oneself or one’s lineage. The difference lies not in whether an exception is made, but in whether one is willing to acknowledge it as a problem and pay the price for it. Ritual provides a buffering mechanism, transforming tensions that might otherwise become direct confrontation into disputes over procedure, form, and precedent.

As for Music, in the original Zhou structure it was not a matter of personal aesthetic experience, but a public activity. Music and dance appeared together in ancestral temples, court assemblies, and banquets. Their function was not “self-expression,” but to realign everyone present in rhythm, intensity, and timing. When to rise, when to stop, how far emotions should go—these were all pre-regulated by music. When Confucius discussed Music, his core concern was not whether it sounded pleasant, but what kind of state it led people into. His distinction between “elegant music” and “music of Zheng” was not an aesthetic preference, but a social judgment. In his view, certain kinds of music amplify desire and immediate gratification, causing people to lose self-restraint, whereas elegant music is characterized by moderation, symmetry, and predictability; it does not push emotions to extremes, but keeps them within recoverable bounds.

For Confucius, Music was never detached from its political context. He did not believe in “neutral music.” In his view, any musical form that is repeatedly used and institutionalized will shape a certain type of person. If music is allowed to become pure sensory stimulation, groups become short-sighted, impulsive, and difficult to restrain; if music is entirely instrumentalized as coercion, it produces numbness and hypocritical compliance. The ideal state of Music is to make people willing to restrain themselves, rather than being forced to obey.

The details of these discussions were later organized into the Analects, which is why the text takes the form of dialogues—it really is a summary of classroom conversations. Confucius spent his life immersed in the study, understanding, and discussion of these norms. Although his political practice failed, the discussions themselves could still proceed as thought experiments.

Around 481–480 BCE, Confucius in his old age suffered successive blows from the deaths of his disciples, especially the death of Yan Hui, which had a profound impact on his mental state. Historical records note that during this period he repeatedly expressed a clear awareness of the finitude of life and the fact that the Way had not been realized, yet he did not turn toward religious transcendence. Instead, he focused even more intently on teaching and instruction by personal example.

In 479 BCE, Confucius died in Lu at about seventy-three years of age. At his death he held no official rank and left no written works (the Analects were written by his students). What he left behind were a community of disciples, a textual tradition that had been organized and repeatedly taught, and a mode of teaching and interpretation that could continue to be imitated. His posthumous influence did not appear immediately, but gradually expanded through the continual organization, transmission, and institutionalization carried out by later generations of disciples.