Zi Lu met the man with the basket

The episode of Zilu meeting the old man carrying a weed basket places a private act of hospitality beside a public argument about duty. Separated from Confucius after falling behind, Zilu encounters a man who has withdrawn from ordinary political life. Their brief exchange ends not in agreement but in a sharp ethical contrast: the old man’s disappearance leaves Zilu to state why, even when right principles fail to prevail, a superior man should still take office and perform his responsibilities.

Encounter on the road

Following Confucius, Zilu falls behind and meets an old man carrying a basket for weeds across his shoulder on a staff. He asks whether the man has seen his master. Instead of answering directly, the old man challenges Zilu’s fitness for labor, saying his limbs are unaccustomed to toil and that he cannot distinguish the five kinds of grain, then asks who his master could be. He plants his staff in the ground and resumes weeding. The practical work before him and his dismissive reply set the terms of the encounter: Zilu approaches as a follower seeking directions, while the old man turns the question back on the world of service and status that Zilu represents.

Hospitality and departure

Zilu joins his hands across his breast and stands before the old man. The exchange then changes register. The old man keeps him overnight, kills a fowl, prepares millet, and gives him a meal; he also introduces Zilu to his two sons. This welcome is concrete and domestic, contrasting with the old man’s initial rebuke. The episode does not explain what prompts the hospitality or describe a reconciliation between the two men. It records the gestures and lets their contrast stand: the old man refuses to direct Zilu toward his master, yet receives him into his household.

The next day Zilu continues on his way and reports what happened to Confucius. Confucius identifies the old man as a recluse and sends Zilu back to see him. By the time Zilu returns, the man has gone. The second visit therefore produces no further conversation: the old man’s absence closes off a direct answer and makes Zilu’s account to the family the episode’s final word on the dispute.

Zilu’s argument about service

Speaking to the household after the old man’s departure, Zilu argues that refusing office is not righteous. He grounds his claim in human relations: if the distinctions and obligations between the old and young cannot simply be discarded, then the duties between sovereign and minister cannot be set aside either. In his view, a person who seeks to preserve personal purity by withdrawing from service allows a greater relation to fall into disorder.

Zilu does not claim that serving guarantees success. He says that a superior man takes office in order to perform the righteous duties attached to it, while remaining aware that right principles may fail to advance. This qualification gives his position its force: public service is presented not as a promise of political victory, but as an obligation that persists despite the known failure of sound principles to prevail. The old man’s withdrawal and Zilu’s defense of office thus represent different answers to the same disorder, rather than a simple contrast between knowledge and ignorance.

Narrative shape and significance

The episode moves through a compact sequence of actions: a question for directions, a rebuke during weeding, a night of hospitality, a failed return visit, and an argument addressed to the old man’s family. Its change of tone—from refusal to welcome, and from an anticipated meeting to absence—keeps the old man from being reduced to a single gesture. His refusal to guide Zilu coexists with his willingness to host him; his disappearance leaves no recorded reply to Zilu’s defense of service.

The conclusion belongs to Zilu. Rather than presenting the recluse’s reasoning directly, the account gives prominence to the duties Zilu believes withdrawal endangers, especially the relation between sovereign and minister. The episode makes the cost of political disengagement an ethical question: personal purity may be preserved, but, in Zilu’s argument, obligations to others remain. Its unresolved ending preserves the contrast between withdrawal and engagement without reporting that either man changed his position.