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填 tían (V) to boom like a drum

填然 tíanrán: (Adv) in the manner of a drum booming

鼓 gǔ (N) a drum; (V) to beat a drum, to encourage, to drum troops to
battle

兵 bing (N) a weapon, a soldier

刄 rèn (N) the edge of a blade

接 jie (V) to adjoin, to come into contact, to receive

甲 jǐa (N) a shell (generally of a turtle), armor

曳 yì (V) to drag

步 bù (N) a pace, a step; (V) to walk

直 zhí *(Adv) simply, only

望 wàng (V) to gaze, to look in the distance, to look towards, to hope, to
expect

Grammar and Notes

10.1 Nominlization of a prepositional phrase

The opening phrase of the king’s question is difficult to analyze grammatically. The key
is to note that the yĕ 也 is a topic marker. Within the topic, the nominalizing zhi
之 governs the propositional phrase yú gúo 於國. To translate the topic, it is necessary to
make the prepositional phrase into a noun phrase.

10.2 The function of rán 然

a. In this text, rán 然 functions somewhat differently from the way we have encountered
in before. Here, its meaning is close to “thus” or “similar.” In fact, the closest equivalent
phrase would be rú cǐ 如此 where rú carries the meaning of “to resemble” (“resembles
this”).