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战国战国 · 文 Prose

学弈

Xueyi: Learning to Play Weiqi

孟子

Mengzi

名篇Famous Piece 寓言Fable 说理Didactic Writing

弈秋，通国之善弈者也。
使弈秋诲二人弈，其一人专心致志，惟弈秋之为听；
一人虽听之，一心以为有鸿鹄将至，思援弓缴而射之。
虽与之俱学，弗若之矣。

Yi Qiu was the best weiqi player in the whole state. If one makes him teach two men to play, one of them concentrates his heart and will, and listens only to Yi Qiu; the other, though he listens, has his whole mind on a wild goose about to come, and wishes to take his bow and arrow and shoot it.>
Though he studied with the other, he did not match him.

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Meaning

The passage is a fable about attention. Two boys learn the same game from the same master, one of whom governs his mind entirely by his teacher while the other is watching for a bird he could shoot. They study together and the second does not come near the first. The lesson is not about talent or instruction: it is that the outcome of learning is decided by where the heart is. Because the passage is a short, self-contained story with a plain ending, it became the classical model for the Chinese essay that teaches by comparing two people who were otherwise alike.

弈秋，是全国最善于下棋的人。让弈秋教两个人下棋，其中一个人专心致志，只听弈秋的教导；另一个人虽然也在听，心里却总以为有天鹅将要飞来，想着拿起弓箭去射它。虽然他和专心的人一同学习，却比不上人家了。

Appreciation

[Plain Paraphrase] A famous player teaches two pupils. The first attends to nothing but his teacher; the second half-listens, and half of his mind is on a flying goose he wants to shoot. They learn together, and the second is worse.[Structure] Three sentences of growing length, then one short verdict that undoes them: introduction, the two pupils side by side, and the conclusion 'though he studied with the other, he did not match him.'[Imagery] The only image is the wild goose, and it is an image of distraction — the bird the second pupil never shoots, which signals that his attention has already left the game.[Sentiment] Nothing is scolded and nothing is comforted. The verdict 'he did not match him' isflat; no blame is attached, and the brevity of the ending is what makes the point land. The story is memorable precisely because the two boys differ in one only thing, while everything else — master, game, board, hours — is identical.

【白话串讲】孟子写《学弈》：弈秋教两个人下棋。一个人“专心致志，惟弈秋之为听”。另一个人“一心以为有鸿鹄将至，思援弓缴而射之”——想着射天鹅。“虽与之俱学，弗若之矣”——“为是其智弗若与？曰：非然也”——不是智力问题，是专心不专心。【意象与手法】这是以寓言说理的典范：以小见大，借下棋的小事讲「专心致志」的大道理；对比手法贯穿全篇，一专一分，同师异果，不着一字褒贬而褒贬自明；语言简练，叙议结合，全章不足百字，却完整而深刻。【情感与主旨】孟子借此说明学习成败的关键不在天资与师承，而在用心是否专一——「不专心致志，则不得也」，既劝学，也寓「求其放心」的修养之道。【名句点睛】「专心致志」由此篇凝为成语，「一心以为有鸿鹄将至」更成为形容人浮气躁、心不在焉的经典表达。

Background

The Mengzi, the book of the philosopher Mencius (c. 372–289 BC), is a dialogue record rather than a treatise, and the book it belongs to, the 'Gaozi' section, is where the master's arguments about the heart and about what the mind must be kept are set out. This short piece is one of the handful of narrative fables in the book, and it is the source of the Chinese idiom for studying with divided attention. It has been a school text for more than two thousand years, and it is among the passages most frequently quoted in essays on effort.

《学弈》选自《孟子·告子上》，作者是战国时期的思想家孟子（约前372—前289），名轲，邹国（今山东邹城）人，儒家学派的代表人物，被后世尊为「亚圣」。孟子生活在战国中后期，诸侯争霸、百家争鸣，他继承并发展了孔子的学说，主张「仁政」「王道」，提出「性善论」，认为人性本善，人人都有恻隐、羞恶、辞让、是非「四端」，关键在于后天的存养扩充。《告子上》一篇集中讨论人性问题，孟子在与告子的反复论辩中阐发性善之说，《学弈》即此篇中一个著名的比喻性例证。当时诸侯国君多贪图功利、暴虐不仁，孟子周游列国，屡屡进谏而不被采纳，遂退而著书立说，与弟子万章、公孙丑等整理《孟子》七篇。文中弈秋是传说中当时全国最善于下棋的人，孟子借「弈秋诲弈」的小故事说明「专心致志」的重要性，进而论证学习与为善的关键在于用心专一——「今夫弈之为数，小数也；不专心致志，则不得也」。本文所录为《学弈》全章的主体，故事完整，寓意深远。

Art

The whole passage turns on a pair of sentences of different lengths. The pupil who does well is described in four characters and then six — he is concentrated and he listens only to the teacher — while the pupil who fails gets a sentence that nearly doubles in length: he listens, and yet his mind is on a goose, and he wants to take his bow. The lengthening itself dramatises the wandering mind, and the reader feels the slackness before any argument is made. Two other devices help: the use of 虽 ('though') so that the failing pupil's attendance is granted and then discounted, and the closing clause, four characters, which cuts against everything before it. The final sentence obeys what the fable preaches, since it is, like the good pupil's mind, entirely on the subject.

《学弈》是先秦诸子散文中以寓言说理的典范，全文不过百字，却完整地讲述了一个小故事并寄寓深刻的道理，其艺术特色有三。其一，寓言说理、以小见大。孟子不讲抽象的道理，而是用一个日常可见的下棋故事来说明「专心致志」的重要性：同样跟随名师弈秋学棋，一个专心，一个分心，结果天差地别。从下棋这样的小事入手，推论出学习、为政、修身的大道理，正是先秦儒家「能近取譬」的说理艺术。其二，对比手法贯穿全篇。二人学弈，一专心一不专，形成鲜明对照：专心者「惟弈秋之为听」，唯老师之命是听；不专者「虽听之，一心以为有鸿鹄将至」，身在课堂而心在天空。同一老师、同一教材、同一环境，结果「弗若之矣」，差异只在用心与否，对比之下，道理不言自明。其三，语言简练、叙议结合。全文以叙事为主，兼有简洁的议论（「虽与之俱学，弗若之矣」），叙事为议论张本，议论为叙事点睛，不着一字说教而教训自在其中，正见孟子「言近而旨远」的文章风格。

Allusions

Yi Qiu is the legendary weiqi master of the state of Qi, so good that his name became a byword for the game itself. The wild goose (鸿鹄) is the swan, which in Chinese usage is the bird of high ambition — Chen She asks 'how would a swallow know the ambition of a swan' — so the story quietly mocks a pupil whose ambition has taken him out of the room. The 弓缴, the bow with a weighted cord, is the weapon of the archer rather than the game; the pupil's distraction is described in the vocabulary of war. The ending word 弗若之矣, 'he did not match him,' is a flat assessment with no judgment attached, and it is that refusal to moralise that made the passage a favourite with later essayists.

《学弈》虽是一则短小的寓言，其人物与意象却承载着深厚的文化内涵。弈秋之「秋」，一说以其善弈而名之，古人常以技艺称人，如「庖丁」「轮扁」；「弈」即围棋，相传始于尧舜时代，春秋战国时期已相当普及，是「琴棋书画」四艺之一，被视为修养心性的雅事，故以学弈喻求学，正是取围棋所需的高度专注与智力，恰合「专心致志」的主旨。「鸿鹄」即天鹅，是中国文化中高远志向的象征，《史记·陈涉世家》载陈涉「燕雀安知鸿鹄之志哉」，以鸿鹄喻远大抱负；而《学弈》中的鸿鹄却是使学棋者分心的诱惑——这恰恰说明：志向虽高远，若不能脚踏实地、心无旁骛，则一切皆空，与「一心以为有鸿鹄将至」的讽喻形成意味深长的对照。「弓缴」之「缴」指系在箭上的丝绳，射鸟所用，细节真实，可见战国人的生活场景。这一寓言在后世影响深远，「专心致志」「一心以为有鸿鹄将至」皆成常用成语，与《学记》《劝学》等一同成为蒙学与教育中劝学励志的经典文本。

Commentary

Readers have understood the fable in two ways. The straightforward reading is the moral one — single-minded attention is the condition of all learning — and it is the reading that has made this the most quoted passage of the book in schools. The more subtle reading, which Mencius' own discussion of the mind elsewhere in the Mengzi supports, is that the story is also about where the heart finds its home: the good pupil's heart has gone out to nothing else, and therefore nothing else can compete. Later writers, from the Tang essayists to the Qing note-takers, borrowed the frame — two people, one capacity, one divided heart — and the idiom 一心以为鸿鹄将至 survives as a way of saying that a person's body is present and his mind is elsewhere.

《学弈》是《孟子》中最脍炙人口的篇章之一，千百年来作为劝学名篇广为传诵，其影响远超文本本身。在教育思想上，孟子借学弈说明「专心致志」是学习成败的关键，与《礼记·学记》「善学者，师逸而功倍」的思想相通，也与荀子《劝学》「锲而不舍，金石可镂」的坚持论相呼应，共同构成中国古代劝学传统的核心话语；「专心致志」一词更由这个故事凝结而成，至今仍是汉语中形容用心专一的最常用成语。在文学上，这则寓言是先秦诸子「以譬喻说理」的典范，其「小故事、大道理」的写法，上承《论语》的语录与《庄子》的寓言，下启韩非子、柳宗元、苏轼等人的寓言与杂说，是古代说理文学的经典范式。在当代，此章仍入选中小学语文教材，是学生接触先秦散文与文言文的入门篇目；由故事引申出的「学习贵在专心」的教导，更成为一代代中国人的常识。一篇不足百字的寓言，能跨越两千余年而常读常新，正是其「言近旨远」生命力的最好证明。

Prosody

Form A short didactic passage in pre-Qin unrhymed prose, belonging to the Miscellaneous之上的 sayings style.先秦诸子散文（《孟子》语录体中的说理短文）

Rhyme There is no rhyme; the close is achieved by the ordering of the clauses instead, with the sentence lengths of the two pupils forming the balanced pair that stands in for a rhyme.全文不押韵，以散句行文，节奏来自句子的长短错落与虚词的运用。「弈秋，通国之善弈者也」以判断句定调，舒缓从容；「其一人专心致志，惟弈秋之为听」四字句与六字句相间，顿挫分明；「一心以为有鸿鹄将至，思援弓缴而射之」句子加长，如分心者思绪的蔓延；「虽与之俱学，弗若之矣」复归短句，斩截收束，全段张弛有致。

Tone pattern The voice is that of a teacher narrating: calm, unhurried, and never raised. The intonation is flat in the first sentence, quickens where the second pupil's mind wanders, and stops abruptly on the verdict.语调由平叙而对照而归结，先介绍人物（平缓），次写二人情态（一稳一急），终以「弗若之矣」淡然作结，寓意深沉而不动声色，正合孟子「言近而旨远」的风格。

Reading note The passage is unrhymed prose, and its rhythm is made entirely out of sentence length. The opening 'Yi Qiu was the best weiqi player in the whole state' is a long, relaxed declaration of the whole frame. The good pupil is then described in a short, even pair of clauses of four and six characters, and the passage slows accordingly. The bad pupil is described in a sentence that keeps growing — he listens, but his mind is on a goose, and he wants to take his bow — and the reading quickens with it. Then the sentence collapses back to four characters, 弗若之矣, and the rhythm stops. That arrest is the passage's last piece of rhetoric: after the wandering, the short clause nails the result down. Even the particles help — three 之 in quick succession, and the 矣 that closes on a flat, undeniable note. The whole piece is barely a hundred characters and is built like the game it describes: an even opening, a middlegame of contrast, and a clean finish.《学弈》是散体短文，不讲求押韵对仗，其节奏之美来自句式长短与语气虚词的精心调度。开篇「弈秋，通国之善弈者也」以长句立论，语气舒缓，如娓娓道来；写专心者「其一人专心致志，惟弈秋之为听」，四字、六字相间，节拍平稳，恰合专注者沉静之态；写分心者「一心以为有鸿鹄将至，思援弓缴而射之」，句子陡然拉长，语气渐急，仿佛能听见分心者心猿意马的扑腾；结尾「虽与之俱学，弗若之矣」复归短句，一字一顿，斩钉截铁。这种以句式长短模拟人物情态的写法，是先秦散文「文气」的自觉运用。此外，「也」「之」「矣」等语气词的穿插，使全文读来如对话，亲切自然；「矣」字的收束更带无可辩驳的笃定。全文不足百字，却跌宕起伏、一气呵成，恰似一盘精妙的棋局：布局从容，中盘对照分明，收官干净利落，与「弈」的主题暗合，堪称形式与内容的完美统一。

Line by line

弈秋，通国之善弈者也。

Yi Qiu was the best weiqi player in the whole state.

弈秋，是举国上下最善于下棋的人，棋艺冠绝全国、无人能及。

Yi Qiu was the finest chess-player in the whole kingdom.

开篇一句，寥寥九字，交代人物与身份，是全文叙事的起点。「弈秋」是传说中全国棋艺最高的人，在战国时期声名远播，是「善弈」的代名词；「通国」即全国，「通国之善弈者」以「者」字结构构成判断句，肯定而简洁，把弈秋的棋艺推到全国第一的位置。这一句看似平实，作用却极关键：它为主人公设置了一个无可争议的高起点——教棋的既是全国第一高手，那么学生学不好，就绝不是老师不行，只能归结于学生自身用心与否。这样一来，下文二人学弈的悬殊结果便具有了极大的说服力，论点的根基在开篇已然立稳。同时，「善弈」之「善」字也暗含儒家「学以致用」的价值取向。全句句式整饬、语气笃定，正是先秦散文「简而有力」的典型笔法。

The opening line, a bare nine characters, naming person and identity, the narrative's start. 'Yi Qiu' the legendary best player in the state, famed in the Warring States, the very byword for 'skilled at chess'; 'the whole state' the whole country, 'the best chess-player in the whole state' a judgment sentence in the 'the one who' construction, assured and brief, placing Yi Qiu's skill first in the land. The line seems plain, yet its role crucial: it sets the protagonist an uncontested high start - if the teacher is the state's best, then a pupil's failure is never the teacher's fault, but the pupil's own attention. Thus the later gulf between the two pupils gains its great force, the argument's foundation laid at the opening. At the same time, the word 'skilled' in 'skilled at chess' holds the Confucian value of 'learning applied.' The whole line's order even, the tone assured, the pre-Qin model of 'brief and forceful.'

其一人专心致志，惟弈秋之为听；一人虽听之，一心以为有鸿鹄将至，思援弓缴而射之。

One of them concentrates his heart and will, and listens only to Yi Qiu; the other, though he listens, has his whole mind on a wild goose about to come, and wishes to take his bow and arrow and shoot it.

其中一个人专心致志，只听弈秋的教导；另一个人虽然也在听，心里却总以为有天鹅将要飞来，想着拿起弓箭去射它。

One of them concentrated his whole mind, listening only to Yi Qiu; the other, though he sat at the lessons, kept thinking a swan would fly by, and longed to seize bow and string to shoot it.

这是全文的核心对比，两句写尽专心与分心的天壤之别。前一人「专心致志」，以「惟弈秋之为听」强调其专注之纯——「惟……之为……」是宾语前置的强调句式，把「弈秋」提到动词前，突出他只听老师教诲、别无二心的状态，一个「惟」字写尽全神贯注。后一人「虽听之」三字极妙：他并非不听，而是「身在曹营心在汉」，「一心以为有鸿鹄将至」的「一心」与前面「专心」构成尖锐对照——专心者用心于棋，分心者用心于鸿鹄，同是「一心」，所向迥异；「思援弓缴而射之」更以具体的动作想象（拿起弓箭去射天鹅）把分心的程度写得活灵活现。孟子不下一字褒贬，而褒贬自在对比之中：两个学棋者的形象如漫画般鲜明，道理的倾向不言而喻，这正是「能近取譬」说理艺术的神髓。

This is the whole's central contrast, two lines writing the sky-and-earth difference between attention and distraction. The first, 'gave his whole mind to chess,' stressing the purity of his focus by 'listening only to Yi Qiu' - 'only...' the fronted object construction, putting 'Yi Qiu' before the verb, marking that he hears only the master's teaching, no other thought; the one word 'only' writing the whole-hearted attention. The second, 'though he listened,' three words most cunning: he does not not listen, but 'body in the camp, mind elsewhere'; the 'was always thinking' in 'was always thinking a swan was about to come' set in sharp contrast with the 'whole mind' before - the attentive one's mind on chess, the distracted one's on the swan, both 'whole mind,' yet aiming at different things; 'longed to take bow and string and shoot it' further writing the distraction's degree through concrete imagined action. Mencius adds no word of praise or blame, yet praise and blame lie in the contrast: the two pupils' images as clear as a cartoon, the tendency self-evident - this is the very marrow of 'drawing the lesson from what is near.'

虽与之俱学，弗若之矣。

Though he studied with the other, he did not match him.

虽然他和那位专心致志的人一同学习、一同听讲，棋艺却远远比不上人家了。

Though he studied with the same teacher, he could not match the other.

结尾两句，收束叙事，点出结果，是全章画龙点睛之笔。「虽与之俱学」先退一步：二人明明同拜一位老师、同在一处学习、学的还是同一种棋艺，条件完全相同；「弗若之矣」再进一层：结果却相差悬殊。一退一进之间，把「结果差异」与「条件相同」的矛盾推到读者面前，迫使读者追问：既然条件一样，为什么结果不同？答案呼之欲出——只因用心有别。「弗若之矣」四字语气平淡，几乎是结论性的陈述，不含一丝夸张，然而正是在这种平实之中，道理的锋芒尽显：学习成败的关键不在天资、不在师承、不在环境，而在是否「专心致志」。孟子以两句话完成故事的收束，随即引出「今夫弈之为数，小数也；不专心致志，则不得也」的议论，叙议衔接如行云流水，寓言的说理功能至此圆满实现。

The closing two lines, gathering the narrative, naming the result, the chapter's finishing stroke. 'Though he learned with the other' first yielding: the two plainly shared one master, one place, one chess; the conditions identical. 'He could not equal him' then advancing: yet the result poles apart. Between the yield and the advance, the contradiction of 'different results' and 'same conditions' is set before the reader, forcing the question: if the conditions are the same, why the result differs? The answer at the lips - only the attention differs. The four words 'he could not equal him' in a flat tone, almost a conclusive statement, not a touch of exaggeration, yet precisely in this plainness the argument's edge shows: the key to learning's success is not native gift, not teacher, not environment, but whether one 'gives his whole mind.' Mencius, in two lines, closes the story, then leads into the discussion of 'chess is a small craft; without whole attention, one cannot master it,' narrative and argument flowing like running water, the fable's persuasive function complete.

Study

Word focus

专心致志 Concentrate the heart and aim the will (专心致志). Four characters that say both that the mind must be single and that it must be directed; the phrase became one of the standard Chinese idioms for wholehearted application, and in this passage it is applied to the pupil who succeeds. It is the contrast with the divided mind of the other pupil that gives each word its edge. 「专心致志」四字，是《学弈》贡献给汉语的最宝贵财富，由一则寓言凝成一个千古成语。「专」言其专一，「心」言其用心，「致」言其把心力投注到一处，「志」言其意志的定向，四字层层递进，把「用心的程度」写得密不透风：不仅心要专，还要把全部心志都投放到所学的对象上，达到旁若无人的境界。与之对举的是后一人的「一心以为有鸿鹄将至」——同是一个「心」字，一「专」一「分」，对照之下，「专心致志」的分量愈显。这个成语的生命力极强，两千余年来始终是汉语中形容学习工作专注认真的最常用语，从古代书院的对联到今天的课堂标语，「专心致志」无处不在。一个成语的诞生，往往意味着一篇作品的文化影响力已深入民族语言的肌理，《学弈》正是一例。

鸿鹄 Wild goose, the swan (鸿鹄). In Chinese usage 鸿鹄 is the bird of far-off ambition — Chen She's 'how would a swallow know the ambition of a swan' — which is why its appearance here is ironic: the pupil's grand ambition is precisely the thing that takes him out of the lesson. The image has lasted because it names the familiar failure of thinking about the distant prize while the task on the board waits. 「鸿鹄」即天鹅，在《学弈》中是使学棋者分心的诱惑之物，其意象的运用深具反讽意味。在中国文化传统中，鸿鹄本是高远志向的象征——陈涉「燕雀安知鸿鹄之志哉」以鸿鹄喻凌云壮志，后世「鸿鹄之志」成为远大抱负的代名词；《学弈》却让鸿鹄扮演了「反面角色」：学棋者一心想着天鹅飞来、拉弓射之，恰恰因为「志向」太远而荒废了眼前的「本分」。这一反用极见深意：孟子并非否定志向，而是讽喻那些好高骛远、不肯脚踏实地的人——鸿鹄之志固然可贵，若不能心无旁骛地做好眼前的事，志向便只是空想。以高远之象写分心之弊，举重若轻，正是孟子善用意象的明证。后来「一心以为有鸿鹄将至」更成为讥讽「人在曹营心在汉」的常用语。

惟弈秋之为听 Listen only to Yi Qiu (惟弈秋之为听). This inverts the normal order, putting the object before the verb and joining it with 之 and 为 — the same construction that survives in the idioms 惟利是图 and 惟命是从. The inversion is not ornamental: by fronting the master's name, the sentence makes exclusive attention the thing being asserted. 「惟弈秋之为听」是全句的语法焦点，也是先秦文言特有的强调句式。「惟……之……为……」是宾语前置的固定格式：正常语序为「惟听弈秋」，即只听弈秋的话，将宾语「弈秋」提前，以「之」字复指，再用「为」字系之，构成「惟弈秋之为听」，语序的倒装本身就产生强调的力度，加上「惟」（只有）字，把「除弈秋外不听任何人的话」的专一状态推到极致。这种句式在《左传》《国语》中屡见，是先秦书面语的典型特征，孟子用之，既见其古雅，又见其精确——用最古典的句式写最专一的状态，形式与内容相得益彰。后世仿此句式者甚众，如「惟利是图」「惟命是从」等成语皆由此类格式凝固而成，《学弈》此句可说是这类句式的经典标本，也是学生理解宾语前置的入门范例。

学弈