<p>起 means "inspire", and 予 means "me". Literally: It's you, Shang (Zixia's given name), who inspired me. </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-11-30T08:58:43.403Z
2015-11-30T08:58:43.403Z
Winfred Huang
<p>I'm translating a classical Chinese text into English and the phrase "起予“ 让我头痛。 Please, help. </p>

<p>This is the full classical text (from the Confucian analects) :</p>

<p>子夏問曰：「『巧笑倩兮， 美目盼兮， 素以為絢兮。』何謂也？ 子曰： 「繪事後素。」 曰： 「禮後乎？」 子曰： 「起予者商也，始可與言詩已矣。 」 </p>

<p>The best I can try to translate 起予 is for it to mean something along the lines of... starts to give....</p>

<p>谢谢</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-11-28T23:08:46.333Z
see e。g. http://www.slkj.org/wenyan/23802.html
user6065
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-11-29T01:33:53.647Z
Many careful specialists have translated the Lun Yu.   You should look at D. C. Lau, Arthur Waley, Ames and Rosemount and as many others as you have time for.  Slingerland gives detailed discussion of some translation issues and on various Chinese commentaries on each passage.
Colin McLarty
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-11-29T18:24:40.417Z
Thanks! Haha, yeah I'm no specialist, just some homework.
3龙花
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-11-29T23:11:10.313Z
I'm curious, what resources were you supposed to use for this homework?  I hope it was not just a standard textbook on 普通话.
Colin McLarty
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-11-30T02:01:41.100Z
We have been learning classical Chinese for a semester, so I have a basic idea of what's all up. Anyway I got on Baidu to get me some specific definitions of the words in question and the word that was really getting me here was that 起 can mean inspire, but I think that's a rare usage in classical chinese.
3龙花
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-11-30T16:26:39.093Z
You can look up occurrences of  起 in many early texts at http://ctext.org/tools
Colin McLarty
<classical-chinese>
Classical Chinese question. 古文。 Meaning of 起予？
# Classical Chinese question. 古文。 Meaning of 起予？

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-11-28)

I'm translating a classical Chinese text into English and the phrase "起予“ 让我头痛。 Please, help.

This is the full classical text (from the Confucian analects) :

子夏問曰：「『巧笑倩兮， 美目盼兮， 素以為絢兮。』何謂也？ 子曰： 「繪事後素。」 曰： 「禮後乎？」 子曰： 「起予者商也，始可與言詩已矣。 」

The best I can try to translate 起予 is for it to mean something along the lines of... starts to give....

谢谢

**Tags:** classical-chinese

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: see e。g. http://www.slkj.org/wenyan/23802.html  
> **username_2**: Many careful specialists have translated the Lun Yu.   You should look at D. C. Lau, Arthur Waley, Ames and Rosemount and as many others as you have time for.  Slingerland gives detailed discussion of some translation issues and on various Chinese commentaries on each passage.  
> **username_0**: Thanks! Haha, yeah I'm no specialist, just some homework.  
> **username_2**: I'm curious, what resources were you supposed to use for this homework?  I hope it was not just a standard textbook on 普通话.  
> **username_0**: We have been learning classical Chinese for a semester, so I have a basic idea of what's all up. Anyway I got on Baidu to get me some specific definitions of the words in question and the word that was really getting me here was that 起 can mean inspire, but I think that's a rare usage in classical chinese.  
> **username_2**: You can look up occurrences of  起 in many early texts at http://ctext.org/tools  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2015-11-30. Score: 3 | Accepted answer

起 means "inspire", and 予 means "me". Literally: It's you, Shang (Zixia's given name), who inspired me.


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