I IO Vladitnir Nabokou

NOTES

r, "Problems of Translation: Onegin in English," Parti'san Reaierts, XXll(rqSS),496-512.

z. Letourneur's initial version is Hamlet, Prince de Dannemarcft in Volume

5 of Shakespeare's Oeuvres, Paris, t779. \n 1823, when writing -fwo, Pushkin

tonsulted tlre rSzr edition (Volume r of Oeuares compl|rcs, revised by Guizotand Pichot).

3. Gresset, Vert-aert, 1734; Party, Souvenir, in Poösies örotiques, 1778;

Bertin, Elögie ll ä Catilie, r785; Ducis, Epitre ä l'arnitiö, t786.

4. The senrence is completely botched in John Butr's execrable Englishversion of Cand.ide in the Penguin series, r947, unfortunately used in }Iuman-ities courses.

SOME REFLECTIOI{S ON TI-IE DIFFICUI-TYOF TR.AI§SLATION

,dCHILLES FANG

All a man ever thoughr would go onto a half sheet of norepaper.The rest is application and elaboration.

THe pnoslen of translation rnay be ueated from three angles: adequatecomprehension of the manslated text, adequate rnanipulation of the lan-guage translated into, and what happens in between. The last questionproperly belongs to linguistic psychology, of which I know little. Thesecond quesdon has been ueated eloquently by Matthew Arnold in theIast century (On Tianslating Homer) ancl by Ezra Pound in the present(Notes on Elizubethan Classicists znd Translators of Greek); I do not see

any wzy of adding to their excellent studies on the subiect of the style oftranslation.l

All studies on the problem of translation take it for granted that thetranslator has comprehended the language and thought ofhis text. Butcomprehension is not an easy thing, as we all know through bitter ex-periences. Especially so in Chinese, a language reputedly invented bythe devil to prevent the spread of the Gospel in the Middle l(ngdom.Besides, as D. G. Rossemi once wrote, "a translation remains perhapsthe most direct form of commentary." Hence it may not be irrelevant totreat the first problem of translation in this paper.

1. Tbst and Protest

J'estime les Danois et leurs dents de fer.

When a professional phonologist reads * ä + +r7 fis as Liu shu yinkün piao in place of Liu shu yin yün piao or when the greatest of allSinologists endrles his magnum opus Les Mörnoires historiques instead ofLes Mmtoires du (or d'un) lgrand) historien, we should remind ourselvesthat Beniamin Jowett occasionally "mistranslated" öd. We should notput thcm in thc srunc class with Rapaud of the Institut F. Brossard whorrnuscs rrs with his origin:rl rcrrrlition of tirueo Danaos, ü donaferentrs (sce

Cic<rrge: rlu Mrrrrrit'r,'l'fu A'lnrtiaz). 1'hc phonologist ("thc world's au-tlrority «rn Arrcicnt l,'lr'l,l:u;tcrrr Art" ltccorilirrg tr»:r Ncrv York bool<-rlt'llt'r) rr,:rs llt'r'lr:rlls rrrtt'rttrortllly pr:rcticing tlrt':lrt ()[ (l('('('l)tiort lrt'klvcrl

ttz Achilles Fang

of chinese arr-dealers; and the sinologist probably was following the

inaccurate but tradition-hallowed interpretation of the title. It is reason-

able to believe drat these two eminent scholars sinned with their eyes

open; at least they have earned the benefit of a doubt.

On rhe other händ, when so eminent a iapanese student of Sinology

as Professor Shionoya, an ordinariu.r and himself a practicing Poet ä ld

chinois or at least a versatile versifier, misleads and continues to mislead

(in edition after edition) his readers widr a totally impossible interpreta-

tion of the second line in an almosr pellucid poem of Yüan Ch'en's

7u 44 ä ü. l&' '* a tä\ä A 4h q l> *fl Af 1'l t1i("ü *** ul'at A * ürl.Mtt * {-'rfl*) E iA ,tfi tfia$ afr -&- ü ßt $ t'-4\ali?i"?.o *Y,t* /- /- A A- n[ -< ]'? 7i 1, i.-,

we cannot but raise our eyebrows. The line in question simply-means

that after his wife's death the poet gave away her dresses one after an-

other (to her friehds and relatives) until almost all of them disappeared

and that he could not bear to open her sewing basket with its needles and

thread simply because he found the reminder painful' MM' Bynner and

Kiang render the line thus:

Almost all your clothes have been given away;

Your needle work is sealed, I dare not look at it.

The sentiment can be understood by anyone who has, inter alia, read the

two really sentimental stolies of Elizabeth Villiers and Elinor Forester

in Mrs. ieicestef s School.But Professor Shionoya, who seems to be char-

acteristically "deficient in love,"2 cannot understand such a human senti-

ment. Instead he paraphrases the line

h = i.'H- e A , i , .r r" ', )" l. ttr' r,&täfu*",vl

^ l'-+ ) i 4 f +,{n--,' tu:^,t'u" I l.

In a recent English translation of Tho-U+hizg the well-known transla-

tor Edward Erkäs seems to have surPassed all his past originalities: in-

stead of taking Ho-shang-kung's glosses as glosses, he .reads them as

homiletics. Foi example, the simple sentence *"* z: +S, +4 # t'*"(chap. Bl) should not puzzle even a tyro provided that he knows how to

tä."i" thc four charaiters in his clicrionary. Nor shoulcl a sophisticatcd

ryro worry himsclf to tlcatlt ove r tlris colplct, for ottr transllttor's or:tclt:

is «lrritc cxplicit:z),,, li ;|1 /,,rti .' I 1. r'f l,i ',r' '1 rt"

'

| .l/ U 3 {, r'q'l , i . ). ', t1 '1. {' * tr',

The Difficuhy of Translation I r 3

Furthermore, Ho-shang-kung's commentary quoted in IJin seems tomake the point still more explicit:

*., ß-,n -, F'l z. ',2- tl.i, , i,ta1 *, * &, *'*t, *v.AII that the couplet purporrs ro say is that a true philosopher need not bea walking encyclopedia and that a man of encyclopedic learning is notnecessarily a true philosopher, After giving the couplet a Chestertoniantwist, "The knowing one is no scholar. The scholar is ignoranr," ourtranslator rurns to his oracle: "The knowing one is the knowing Täoist.The unleamed one comprehends unity ar rhe origin. The scholar sees

and hears much, but as he is ignorant, he loses what is important andtrue." His uanslation of the l-lin quorarion is no less original: "'W'hoknows Täo and preserves unity is surely no scholar. As he sees and hearsmuch, he loses what is more imporrant. Therefore he is ignorant." Itlooks as though the translator could not see the gloss for paraphrase, orthe pedant for the preacher.

A Chin dynasty poet wrote a touching poem on "The Desecration ofdre Han 'fombs," in which occurs the line: 4k-**-e_- *r.. A remark-ably competent üanslator renders it as "Of earth they have carriedaway more than one handful" (second edition: "crurnbled" for "carriedaway") and inf,orms his readers in a footnote, o'In the early days of thedynasty a man stole a handful of earth from the imperial rombs, and wasexecuted by the police. The emperor was furious at the lighrness of thepunishment." (Second edition: "In the early days of the Han dynasty aman who stole one handful of earth from the Imperial Tombs was put todeath.") The story refers to Shik-chi 102 (or Hwt-shu 50), where it istold that when the chief iustice of the empire, Chang Shih-chih, sen-tenced to death a man who stole a iade ring from the temple of thefounder of the Han dynastl, the emperor Wen-ti was furious et thelightness of the sentence and wanted to exterminate the man's entirefamily, but that Chang Shih-chih stood firrn on rhe text of the criminalcode and uied to make the emperor reasonable by asking him what se-verer serltence remained to mete out to theman who should (Heaven for-bid, #r * ) carry aw^y a handful of earth from rhe tomb of the later em-pcror, upon which the emperor had to sadsfy himself with confirmingthc original sentence. As commentators agree, the phrase "to carry awaya handful of carth" is a cuphcmism for "to desecrate the imperial tomb."'I'hcrc is no rlrrcstiorr of anylmrly's desecrating thc tomb "in the earlytl:tys" of thc I lrrr tlynrrsty.

I l<rrv, tlrcrr, tlo rrlrsrrrtlirics likc tlrt:sc cr»n'rc lrlxrrrt? [.opstts cilomi? I)c-ficicrrt'y irr lovcP ()r (ls St. Jolrrr of thc (lros,s worrltl lr:rvt: s:ritl) un no sl

rr+ Achilles Fartg

qui? It. is easy to say that there is such a thing as sheer incompetence in

iomprehending a foreign language and a system of alien and ofren "sub-versive" thoughts enmeshed in that language, and to prescribe a strictand sensible regimen in the Sinological techniques to cure such a malady.

But the *atter goer a bit deeper than that. For the so-called Chinese lan-

guage is a really froward child, a rnost recalcitrant thing in the hand ofthe logical-minded.

The Literary Revolution may be viewed as in part an aftemPl to

eliminate some of its recalcitrance. The original proglam for that revo-

lution was something far more comPrehensive in scope than a mere

resroration of the spoken language äs the literary medium, for it de-

manded that all alluiions, clich6s, parallelism, srock-in-trade emotions,

and ancient tradition be thrown overboard; it insisted on grammar, con-

tent, and colloquialisms. Eut the revolution started a bit too late for the

students of Chinese literature. Practically every important piece of writ-ing dating before 1916 (and even some subsequent to that date) abounds

in-allusions, clich6s, parallelism, stock-in-trade emotions, and ancient

tradition with little grammar and sometimes with less content to speak

of. (It is in a way a blessing in disguise that colloquialisms were not the

order of the day; which of us do not groan when we try to read Yüan

drama, written in the dead colloquial speech of the time?) In fact,

"obscurity, erudition, allusiveness , . . ." as a critic in Partisan Reaietts

describes the modernist poerry of Europe and Arnerica, have always

characterized Chinese literary style.T, E. Hulme, the ancestor of Imagism and Amygism, once wrote:

"Personally I am of course in favor of the complete destruction of allverse more than wenty years old." If there had been a dozen or more

Ch'in-shih-huang-ti (First Emperor of all China, burner of the books),

the state of Chinese literature could have been rnore accessible to Sino-

logical comprehension. But there was only one Ch'in-shih-hualg-ti.And, by the nature of things, it is doubtful if more than one could have

been tolerated. As Hulme continues' "But that hrPPy event will not, Iam afraid, take place until Flato's desire has been realized and a minorpoet has become dictator." (Ferhaps Ch'in-shih-huang-ti was a minor

Poer.)2. Tbxt and Context

Pc nsi ort ro ptrrh t n ou sn p pittrtro.

A trultslrrtor rlaust contl)l'clrcntl llrc lcxt ltc is trrltslrtting irr tllt, lilllrt tlIils <lrvrr c()ntcxr lrs wt'll lts ol'tlrlrt r»l'otlrt't'tcxts. I Ie t':tttttol Irc l,r,» lirrlrt lt'

;rlxrrrt tlris tnlltt(.t'; it w,rrrIl lx'rrr,tlritr11 slrotI ol'firlly to tlrtllslrll('ll l)lls

The Difi.culty of Translation rr5

sage before he is perfectly satisfied with the text and can explain everyword in it. He must, furtherrnore, look into variant editions and com-pare the basic text with the fragments and excerpts as quoted elsewhere,

such as T'ai-p'ing Yü-lan, etc. It is very fortunate that a Iarge number ofChinese texts are duplicated: a huge segment of Han-sku is almost, butnot quite, identical wirh Shih-cäi, which in its turn overlaps with manypre-Ch'in texts; there are also two T'ang-sltu, two Wu-tai-skih, and twoYüan-shih. A translator has to cornpare his text with a parallel Passage inother books before he is entitled to feel sätisfied with his comprehension.

He must furthermore make a thorough study of all available scholia.

Ti.ue, most of them are rather silly and stuffy; yet a translator will profitmuch if he assesses them for what they are worth. In shorr, a uanslatormust comprehend not only his text but also its numerous glosses, actualand possible. Ifhe cannot understand the language ofthe scholiasts, he

would be well advised to postpone his translation until he is competentin this respect.

Täke, for example, the sentence:

&$L'alutfi t*i 6 L , al *o ü+ 6 l{ ät1..

It is translated: "You may say that they didn't go the right way abouttheir business, but you rnust know that it is really the fault of thetimes." What the passage means is that the two men who applied theiringenuity to the invention of bagateiles like the opium lamp and thesmoking pipe were misguided, hence they deserved to remain in obscu-

rity, and yet it is to be conceded that, had they been cidzens ofEuropeor America, they could have made themselves famous by their inven-tions. It definitely does not mean that they were ignorant of, the value ofpublicity. The phrase )* l*t :i: $, of course, alludes ro Hsün-tzu(* *a i*):

*'<*rt a1 ^

-t" i6,.., -J#,u' 7l ?u l$ t*i,x) f,- /i&..',,o' fl aäJ l*?,4*i E 16r ,,:' üq, g,l fil -,Na

§t* F*.,do,c. 4*tS, *{t # & Z 4 +L_

The meaning of the original text may come out more accurately in:"You may blamc them for their rnisguided intelligence, yet you willhave to agree with mc that their obscurity was due to a lack of oppor-tunity." fhis souncls a Iittle non sequitur, but this is what rvas intended.

Anothcr instrrrctivc, cxenrplc is the passage

l. ',lt'^,, ,,, li rt,, k .r1, .»{, c,.l; 'i, ,

tntnr-lrrtctl lrs lirllorr,"-: "/\ rrrrrrr rvill tlit' filr rltt, «rttc rvlto ltppl't't'ilttt's ltirtt;rr w()nr:lrr rvill lrr':rrrtrl\,lrr'r'','ll li,r'tlrc,,,tt.' 11,ltr» Plt':trtt's lt,'r."'l'lrt'tt'xt,

tt6 Achilles Fang

found in shih-chi 86, is derived from chan-kuo li'a (chao-ts'e). ssu-ma

Ch'ien himself uses this sentence in his letter to Jen An, where he alters

,'L to )fl (seeWm-hsüan 4l; the letter is also in Han-shu 62, where the

two fi are omimed). Whether 'll, means "to please *:'l .ot "to be

pleased in me" is a minor point, but the translaror could have been

, Ui, more painstaking änd accurate' Lü Hsiang's paraphrase

+ e, A z, *" A §,, f+, i .ä (in Wen-hsüan) definitely shows that the

trrnrlräo, may be revised, ". . A woman will beautify herself for the

man who is pleased in her." Why not even "for her lover"?

of course it is not an easy matter to evaluate glosses and commen-

taries. Some of the Ch'ing scholars have thrown much lighr on ancient

rexts; hence a südent of, ,ry, the Shih, must acquaint himself with

Ch,en Huan's contributionr. Iiot it is quite likely that the writer of the

text the üanslaror is interested in, and who is quoting the shih, may not

have follou,ed or anticipated Ch'en Huan's interpretations; he may have

been a follower of Chu Hsi. In other words, the translator must decide

which interpreration rhe writer had in mind when he adopted the par-

ticular S/zilz passage.

Another serioui task for the translator is to be critical of his text.

The sentence'ä lt iil"ä. &'fi n-+,iog )F * is nonsensical; it cannot

be translated. But a translator has interpreted the Passage as: "On one

occasion rhey were looking at a picture of the emperor shr:n gazing.at

[his wives] E-horng and Nü-ying." As the text does not make sense, the

trrnrlrtor äoght to-hrr," emended it before translaring. The emendation

should be made on the basis of the original Ts'ao Chih text: either as

,€ lX,lXä. ,e-)& fi Z a*, t1- f^ g * .ii ("On one occasion she was

looking at picmres in his company: they were inspecting the portraits ofthe E.ipeär Shun [and his *rolrrg.i, when they saw the portrait ofEJruan§ and Nü-ying") as in T'ai-p'ing Yü-lary ot as

'* ;;t Ef,-ä .e- )§" '& 2- En , L )i\ 9 -b *("On one occasion, etc., when they visited the temp-le.of Shun,.they saw

Äe porr.aits of E-huang and Nü-ying") as in l-wm Lei-chzz. (The second

,"rdirg seems to be in-ferior.) At any rate, there is no question of the

good emperor's leering at his wives in public.The sentence

4Lr* F-Ä,fl,e' .ü"1 g h.* r! L. t-* tt r'ü, "+' )il-ih {is trrrnslutrrd' "Undcr thc I:rtcr IIatt,'thc Iimprcss Mrt, llt'rrtrc:tll "ll-Ilslt'i6tt,s Virrrtc," cotlsort of I(rr:rrtg Wtr'l'i, wrls lts lrlrtrtilirl irr {lt't: lts

slrt'rv,rs lilr.rrl irr virtrrt', r-o llrlrl tlrt'l',rrr1lt't'or l()()l( rrrrrt'lr,lt lililrl itt ltt'l'.' "

The Difficulty of Translation t17

Now the empress Ma was nor the consort of Kuang wu Ti.but of his

,o" lvfing Ti, hence the character eI here. The text seems to be derived

f;;; ," ""rrry of Ts'ao Chih (now existing in excerpt s in T'ai-p'ing Yü-

lanl37 r.,d'zso and l-wm Lei-chü 74), where the telltale /u r\ does

nor occur. (The translator could have looked into Giles's Biographical

p;-sy;6nany, iti.f, he seems to be familiar with, under No. 1471, "Ma

FIou" .t'ä, where the informadon is correctly given')-uÄiä'' then'

lneans i,borrrom of Ming-ti and canonized 'Virtuous.' " Furthermore,

uÄ in the canonizatiori is supposed to mean !Ä s'b" 'r -1; (i'"'' itmeans,,omnilucent," not "illustrious"). Incidentally, "illustrious"

seems ro be a favorite word with sinologists: a newcomer thinks he is

i*p-ulng on MM. Bynner and Kiang by translating.x / rfl i *as^,,BecÄse I lack rri"nr, the iltustriius ruler has relected me." Ofcourse, €x i means ,,a wise ruler," as Bynner and Kiang have it. The

phrase ,l,rryt refers to the intelligence of a ruler as in tU rin Shu ("intelligent kings," Leggeis translation, p' 526), and inr:Ä J. .tl r{ .rz aä +. 4+ tY} in Hsün-tzü.

The problem of context can be best illustrated-by ?' ':q1l example'

When ir*", Legge makes Mencius say (Thc Worls of .Mmcius' pp'

Lil-Zz;,,,The giät man does not think beforehand of his words that

rh"y *ry be siricere, nor of his acrions that they may be resolute;-he

siniply ,p"rk, and does what is right," it is not fair to father on Mencius

the irrt.ntion to absolve the great man from sincerity of w_o_rds and reso-

lureness of acdon. Yet one äf rh" acutest minds in the West can com-

menr: ,,The opportunlsm which has been regarded as the chief merit and

the chief def.ä of Cänfucianism shows clearly here." Does it? What

was it that Mencius had in mind when he made "this rather sinister

seeming pronouncement"? Opportunist as he may no§/ and then have

be"n in"r.roal life, Mencius ."rsnot preaching anything very sinister,

for he was merely trying to make more precise ql'i-C:nlcius had

said. Once asked by frU-[rng to describe an "ofEcer" (shih), Confucius

described three types, in the?ollowing anticlimactic scale-a man with

the sense of shame in him, never failing in his mission for the sovereign;

a man praised for filial piety and fraternaf love; and "a man who makes

pnint äf sincerity in his wärds and resoluteness in his actions, a-truly

obstinate littlc man," ä 'l'- 46 , i+ .r:l' +. , ,E ,§' tt: 't' '{ ä\. Now,

Mcncitrs probably was asl<cd to describe a great man (n-i*);arrrl hc cltosc to strltc: tllc oppositc of what Confucius described

Irs ,,rr lirrk: nllllt," lry irrscr.tirrg thc ncgativc ptt int<t thc- two con-

[rrcirrn sclll(.n('cs ,rir.l lttklinll s«rtrrctlting llositivc ltftc'r thcnr:

rr8 AchillesFang

X A-fr e X.y-^ä,ii X,s.)8,1'lL hn\.ft-. As Ezra Pound oncewrote, "Mencius nowhere rurns against K'uNG, all of Mencius is im-plicit in K'ung's docrrine" {seeTke Criterion,July, 1938). The poet him-self translates the passage in question as follows:

"T":Ii"'fl,,"*Ti;iirüft ma ke,imber

and lay hold ofthe earth.

There is no compromise in this version (except rhe compromise withpopular etymology in the last two lines). In spite of the fact that Men-cius'mind has been analyzed and his book is used in classrooms, it doesnot seem always to be easy to understand Mencius' text in the light ofcontext.

3. Rhetoric and SmtirumtTäin't what a rnan sez, burlvot he means that the traducer has got

to bring ovcr.

Bernard Berenson, in his Sketclz for a Self-portrait,has recenrly rhrowndown the gauntlet to translators from the Chinese:

When one comes ro Gernran and attempts to translate its abstract and qualitativeterms the task is fraught with ahnost insurmountable difficulties, as the English or Frenchor Italian versions of Gerrnan poets and philosophers prove amply. Yet, though many ofus have a living language group to help us out, who can offer a conrernporary satisfactoryrendering of Gemüt? When it is a question of Greek-Plato, f,or instancc-how conveyin any speechoftoday the exact meaning of oa$pooüv4? Then dareto translare the an-cient Chinese and Indian thinkers.

Surely, most of us wince at this challenge, for it is a very serious one.And the reason why such a challenge is so difficulr to meer is that weknow very litcle of what might be called the rhetoric and sentirnent ofthe ancient Chinese thinkers. trf it is true, as T. S. Eliot szys in TheSacredWood, that "an understanding of Elizaberhan rhetoric is as essen-tial to the appreciation of Elizabetl'ran lirerarure as an undersranding ofVictorian sentirnent is essential to the appreciation of Vicrorian litera-ture and George Myndharn," affairs are still more colnpXicated in thecase of Chinese writers and thinkers. Where norhing is obsolete or evenobsolescent and all writers of reputation are conscious of and groan un-der the dead weight of the past, it is no easy metrcr to rliscntanglc trucscntilr)cnt from falsc rhctoric, to clistinguish bcrwcclt trrrtliri«rrr arrd indi-vitltrlrliry, ro rliscrirttinirtc 1l scntirrrt:rrI of thc: hclrrt frrrrrr rrrt'r'r'lip sclviccto tcsllct'l:tlrlc t'ltc'roric:,ll tlcvict's irr slrorl, trl pllr'r't'r,t'r'v rvonl irr tlrt'l)t ( |l)('t l)('r'ril)('ct iyr' ,,1' sl);l('(' :rn(l I inr('.

The Difi.culty of Translation trg

There is a good exarnple illustraring the rhetorical aspect: in the

"Canon of Shun" we read

i*Z L' i4&*a t$t'i'+. A{4"}+'

There has been some earnest controversy over the precise meaning ofthis passage. In spite of the fact that the first two sentences have been

bandied about by almost every literary histr:rian or critic, it is a moot

point whether to take the u,ords at their face vaiues (if there are such

ihings). Moreover, rhe mafter becomes complicated when each writerappropriates rhe senrences in his own fashion and rnakes them put on

rä*" n.* coloring, without being aware (X have the temerity to assert)

of their rhetorical natule.If "psychosinology" (we must thank the author af Finne gans Wake for

inventing this handy word) is a necessary discipline (how else do we

hope to g.t at each writer's senriment?), "etymosirrciogy," otherwise

kntwn ,i "th. ideogrammatic method," is usually frowned upon. But

we will have to apply ihe methodology of that discredited discipline to

evaluate the firsti*o tert.ttces of Shun's definition. We all know that

'r* "si 1 *siag and ä. tsi" < *tiag were to ail intents and pulposes

homophonous in ancient phonolog/; furthermore, the { element ofe* and the character ,t have an identical comPonent, <- (degenerated

in conventionalized writings to *); finally, g', the other component ofi{-, is the same as rhe second characrer in the first sentence. In other

words, the sentence is a very clever but essentially etyrnological oretymosinological trick. In fact, the Shik-rning *+ Z-, whose character-

isiic fearure is its definition by homophones, defines cä as d t-,,**. < t4.e d1 .s trn the second sentence, i4 ,K l, none of the three

characters is homophonous; but we must note that one comPonenr of the

first character in the phrase stands independently as the third character.-fo that exrent the säcond sentence is also an etymological definidon.

How seriously, then, do we häve to take those two statements?

Etymology by itielf lends neirher credir nor discredit to any definition;

oniy when it excludes all other things does it become susPect- A transla-

tor faced rvith a pessage iike the above must see it in its true light before

he artempts to iomprchend its iniporr or senrirnent. Furthermore, he

ought to interpret all subscquent adoptions of such a Passage (e._g., in

Liü lfsich's W'n-hsin T'iooJung) in the light of the adopters' inferredrundcrstanrling of rht origirtel passege . A veritable Chinese box indeed.

Ycars lrlp ( l. 1,. I)it'ltittsott wt'otL:, naivcly I rtt.tt sttrr:, of (lhinesc

lx)('try: "lt i"- o{'rrll 1lot't ly I lirr,»,r, llrc rrros:t Itrtrtt:ttr:ttt,l tltc: lcltst sytttlnl-i.,,rr,.,,,,,,,,tic. It t',rtrtcittlrl:rtt's lili'yrrsr:tr; it prcst'rrts irscl(, rvitltottt lrty

tzo Achilles Fang

veil of ideas, any rhetoric or senrimenr." Many of us would agree with

mosr of this staiement; it is not for nothing that Dickinson claimed to

have been a Chinaman in one of his former incarnations. But "withoutrhetoric or sendment"? of course, Dickinson is here using the two

words in slightly different senses from Eliot; perhaps he meant that

Chinese poelry is entirely sincere and without cant. And yet there is

enough äf rhätoric and sentiment-even in Dickinsonian senses-in

Chinäse poetry and prose to confuse innocent translators'

The säcond ,rp..i, that of senriment, may be better treated in con-

nection with a wärd thar has played a paramount role in the history ofchina and seems to have losr not a particle of its efficacy today. I mean

R" or { t-1,.

We hear ofren of the so-called oriental contemPt for human life' China

may be a part of orienr or, as Dickinson and Harold Acton would insist,

"rry no, t" on", but the salient feature of Chinese polidcal^philosophy

hrr'^l*ry, been irs arrenrion ro rhe idea of the people.In fact, fi" has

,i*ry, bäen identified with Homo sapirys and never wirh Homo pekinmsis

,f".J. It is a word which never has sunk as low as "vulgar," *p1ebeian,"

popular," "le bas peuple" (1 ry. neve.r meant anything.of this sort)'

"i.ipl""'(used as än aäiec-tiue), "poprlace" (as in Matthew Arnold's

,änoi"n"d tripardte classification äf-English society into Barbarians,

Philistines, and PoPulace).

It wouli be the height of folly to believe that the Chinese have always

,eJr.d their poliricriideal. Nor is it relevant to discussthe gap beween

ideal and action here, for our immediate concern is with the simple

*ord, min and jen-min. The problem for the translator, then, boils

down to this: His he done iusriäe to the full connotation of those words

by rendering them as "the people"? Is there any other way of rendering

them?More or less allied with the problem of rhetoric and sentiment is the

annovins nature of Chinese liierary style in general' In most of the

.i"iil1r.a"f*guages the two .rt.goii.t of prose and verse.are usually

distinguishei -är" or less sharply' Speaking-of prose rhythm' George

§"lnrtiuty wrote: "The great P;iltlql.: of foot arrangement in prose

;;;iF;"re Rhyrhm, is"Varieiy.,, With regard todiction and other

i..f,.ri"rf devices, T. E. Holtne thäught that "prosc [is] a museut, wScrc

all the old weapons of poctry [arä] kept'" Ir is' on tltc otltcr ltrrtttl'

p,..,,y ,.,,u.1, of "n

impo.ssilriliry t<>"dcnrarcltc bct'uvc'c'tr tltc: lwo c:ItL:-

i1..,,i.'1., i, rlrc (llrirrcsc iitr-rrrtrr'ti.{'tlrc ,rrst. Ilt thc'y lt:tvt' tlt'vt'l'r,t'tl rts

,,,,,r,. .,l. lt'ss sr'11:rrlrtr: t.rtritit's in tlr<' wt'st, tltt:1' t't,rtlt'st't' rttttl trrCt llt' ilt

The Di.fficllby of Translation tzt

Chinese; in fact, it would not be incorrect to say that the genius of Chi-

n"r. p.*" is verse. Täke the case of -p'im-t'i-'uJtrn,

"parallel prose." Is itpror" o. verse? (That some of the things written in this genre are any-

rl,ing but pletry is beyond question, but it is not so simple to decide

*heihe, pärailäl prose is aerse or prose.) And parallelism or symmetry

are ingrained in Chinese thinking.In Äe West a prosateur who writes blank verse is the butt of critics;

Charles Dickensiith his "As we struggle on, / nearer and nearer to the

sea, from which / this mighty wind was blowing dead on shore, / its

force became more and more / terrific, etc.," has served as an obiect

Iesson. But a Chinese Prosateur is all the more apPreciated for the blank

verse he might scatter through his prose writing' -

The matter becomes sdllhore complicated when we consider the

appalling amounr of evocation in chinese prose. It.is not only in regard

tä'rhythä and diction that Chinese proseapproaches.verse but also in

rhe quality known specifically ,s poeii.. Wlien a well-known student ofChinese art trrnrlri", , ,r.rr" inscription on a painting as a piece ofprose, chopping the lines into bars of two, three, or even eight, nine

"hrrr"t..rirr" irrnot simply deplore his incompetence; it mlstte quite

difficult to recognize verse as ,ärse. The same applies.to the iapanese

musicologisr wh"o puncruated a lü-shih ("regular verse") as if it were a

tz'u; proiebly he älso thought it was a piece of prose'

4. Parataxis l)ersus SYntaxi.s

For purposes oftranslation one has to cut various knots, and make

arbitrarY decisions'

Most Chinese rexrs can be readily Punctuated; moreÖver' t large

number of important texts have been printed-with Punctuation marks,

especially those reprinted in recent years. If a translatotr cannot cor-

,ectly put dots and circles in the body of his text, obviously he is not

ready for translation; he will have to wait some rnore years'

A serious problem, however, remains; it is not to be disposed of so

lightly. Unless the translator is really comPetent' he will be at a loss to

otrrin syntaxis out of the predominäntly paratactical. structure of Chi-

n"r" ,.*rr. For thc so-calleä puncruation marks in Chinese texts, which

any school child of tcn can put down, represent nothing much beyond

bräathing prtuscs. Thcy arc neithcr grammatical nor logical'-

I'h"."""r", nf c,r,rrr.r, two l<intls oiparataxis; onc in the strict sense ofrlrc word, antl thc orlrt.r irr u Lxrsc: sclrsc. whcn Louis MacNcice (Mod'

rtt l'rrlr.'y ll9l8l) slrt'rtks oI At'rltrrr Wrlcy's trtnslrttiott of:Otlc No' 26:

tz2 Achilles Fang

-Ibssed is that cypress boat,

Wave-tossed it floars;IMy heart is in turmoil, I cannot sleep.

irL r,t +ä +, rf ,)L + ,ä,'*. j1-1. 7l fa, a" ü tä. ,*

as paratactical, he is using the word in rhe srricr sense. The problernthat concerns us here is not poetic devices like chis but hor,v ro group a

series of breath-units (called chü) inro logically coalescenr units. Täkethe passage, "My humble opinion is this concerning Masrer Ch'ang,who undertook the pracrice of am while dwelling amid the shadows ofthe North, and was truly cornpetent wirhour ever having received theculrural influence of the Middie Kingdom; who could nor be moved byforce nor beguiled by profir: this was indeed a r'aeul How could it havebeen easy to get hotrd of himl" Ir is hard ro understand what these sen-tences mean. Quite possibly the ranslator did nor have access ro asyntactically punctuated texr, which would read:

&."t A,,'# '* A t'ä.;g;.,Ä,il* 4rl z pal,x ,ie-+ E!L t* *t, * iZ + 6r vt \tc &*,;"n_6 q

''). it i*; fl,] .

&ft x +-, H fr 4+ #,".

The translator must have punctuated the rexr somerhing like the follow-ing:

,$.rt br'# lrA t9*,8,t4 tfl 4Prl,4 ?A+ r4L f+ k *' At.; T E t't r* §.,1, x-'aT vt, 4'l i*; qt itl

/,e-;ä b44d\.If the correct syntactical punctuarion is followed, the text may be trans-lated: "l r,vould like to observe:-Master Ch'ang, a devotee of art,cannot be moved by force nor beguitred by profit, in spite of rhe fact thathe lives in the Northern Land where Chinese civilization has not pene-trated. In other rvords, this man is a rare phenornenon." (Here the twocharacrers X, AY, are only ernphatic; they do not mean thar thc paintcrwas a competent amist. The last four characters ä b t+ ö\ rnerelymean "How is it possible that such a man exisrs?")

A rather instructive exarnple is furnislred by a recent translirtion frourtlre biography of the poer Mcng Hao-jan in Ilsin ll"'ang-slru: " [A lrctdy]in his yorrth, hc lovr:cl stcetlf,asrncss and righrcousncss, arrrl Iilir.tl to hclppcr,plt'in tlislrc:ss."'l'lris sh«rrrltl l,^our)(l strtng(: to illt),()n,..r,r,lro lrus tlorrc:lllY lt';lnsl:tliott: u,lt:rt ('()nn('('l iorr is tlrc.r't'lrt.trvr.t.rr tlrt.pot.l 's lovt.ol'litr':rrll;rstrrlsr; ;rrr,l of'l'irllrtt',rrr;lr,'s:; :rrrrl lris rvrllirrlirr(.ss t() lrr..lp otlrcr.s),

Tbe Difi.culty of Trattslation

Now, the text has:')' Ä+ äi ä, * *& /- ,9.*,r.

It is possible that the translator was aware of Legge's translation of the

Confucian sentence { i*" e A W A 7,x l$ §;-, "Nolv the man of dis-

tinction is solid and straightforward, and loves righteousness" (Analects,

XII, 20). But how does one love steadfastness? Did the poet love thatquality in other peoplel or in himself, or is it that the poet was steadfast

himself? If so, steadfastness in what? "steadfasmess and righteousness"for chieh-i is, to be sure, far better here than GiXes's "chaste and

good,-as a widow who does not remarry." Nor <1o the examples giveninP'ei-wen Yün-fu (widows who remained steadfast to their late hus-

bands' memory, a girl who took revenge on her father's killer by killinghim, men who held fast to the course of life their conscience had dic-tated to them) fit wirh the context in question. But Meng Hao-ian (re-markable a personality as he was) was not pamicularly disdnguished forchieh-i in the usual sense; the translation strikes a false note.

As the translator himself knows, the passage is derived or rewrittenfrom Wang Shih-yüan's preface to the collected poems of Meng Hao-jan:

*'* E *+ !.b\, v). i 4. ä.Which sounds very much like Ssu-ma Ch'ien's prefatory remark on his

chapter on knight-errants :

*(-,r- 1 .l-,ltZL6 §ß -

.ta # ä *;t-ftu.tä,t4*ä - Ä"# A Et.6;

except that Ssu-ma Ch'ien uses ,i: in place of \Ä/ang Shih-yüan's *o.The writer who penned the Hsi'tt T'ang-shu Passage must have in-

tended it to be a syntactical, not a paratacticäI, sentence; thar is, he was

not enumerating three qualities that distinguished Meng Hao-ian'syouth (love of steadf,astness, love of righteousness, and readiness tocome to men in distress); he rather expected his readers to punctuate thescntence as follows:

| ++ 'a? -ir". + )f,- /- .L ilL.

Morcover, he must have used ä! either äs a synolrym of i. or as its

rlualificr or cvcn intcnsi6cr; at any rate, he must have thought ')* t+ lxvvas not rhythrrric ertt<ittglt. ln othcr words, all he intcnclcd was thatMcng I Iur-irrn wrts (itttrl ol- plrryirrg thc rolc of a l<night-crrant, for he

wirs rclrrly l() ('()ur(t ro tltt' ltt'lp ol'rtttytlttc itr distrcss.'l'hc llhrlrsc at 'ri rt,tlrt.rr, rrurst trrclttt lltt'ri:llttt'tllittll:rs tl /,, <lr lil ii. irr tlrt: lirllt»rving

sclrrcn(:cs ltrrttt /"rltrrtt I rttt f tt:

t23

t24 Achilles Fang

-* *q i* qt lx+" '!t (,* *, *$ ++ 4+) *L + i!- *'1,'r1 d, * * z *.,*,< r. * (ro)L,ilt,.X,* *)

*E at 2V ä., ,a-. x <- .L.,.* .( <- & r * *_,* *. til.The phrase ll { occurs also in rhe colloquial saying ä.,; +3 *..If j{ is translated as "righteousness," the translator musr wam thereader that he is using the word in the sense of Hebrew zedokah, "jus-tice, righteousness," which stands for "charity," for &; in the HsinT'ang-shu does not connore the same rhing as when the word is joinedwith 4t ori, etc.

As a syntactical sentence, rhe passage should then mean: "As ayouth he was generous to other people, always ready to help them whenthey were in disüess."

f . Particles and Principles

You crush all pardcles down into close conformity, and walkback and forth on them.

It is forrunate that few Sinologists, excepr those who are still srrug-gling with their characters, have been victimizedby pamicle specialists.

Quire lustifiably, they leave their particles to take care of themselves.Particle books are necessary evils: a standard treatise (P'ei Hsüeh-hai),very valuable for the number of illustrarive examples, is a delectablyconcocted olla podrida of grammatical and lexicographical equations.And what equations indeed! The 6nal *- is first equated with f , underwhich heading instances of its interrogarive and interjecrive usages aremarshalled; then it is equated with iL , S, and .fo, rhe illustrative pas-sages put under each of these equations being all indicative senrences.That is, the particle fu seems to spice almosr any kind of sentence. Thetruth of dre maffer is that it is not the particle which makes a senrenceindicative, etc., for rhe senrence itself is already indicative enough, wirhor without the additional seasoning.

A parallel instance is furnished by a texrbook meanr for classroomuse, in which ;6, which is more or less a colloquial counrerparr of thefinal d, is handled in rhe same fashion; only thar the author, who inci-dentally does not go into any equarion, invenrs a special caregory called"idiomatic" into which he puts a phrase like .lri .X- {t,"bien enrendu."

Our quarrel with the analydc particlist is that his worl<, Icgitinrarcand often necessary as it is, stops with analysis. Wc arc iusrificd in dc-manding that such an cxpcrr, who does not nrincl spclrtlirrg his rirrrr: rrnrlcllcl'gy ott sttclt mrcficd things, 11ivc rrs solr)c ovcr-all lrrrl synrlrt'siz.ingorrlkxrl«, lrr orrtlooh that worrltl tcll trs why rr Prrrriclc lrt.lrlrvcs lrs ir rLrcsrllttl ttot otltct'rvisc'. I lc slrorrLl t'rrll rlrrits with lris irr grrrlrcrirrlg ol';rrrrrick.s

The Difi.cuby of Translation rz1

and samples, which has become as rcchcrchä as Eric Partridge's srudy ofShakespeare's bawdy, and with his penemating analysis, as rafiniert as

inrhe Kama Sutra.He should instead think boldly on the larger plane ofhis problem.

A tentative suggestion may be offered to such a srudent. All particlesare divided, like Caesar's Gallia, into three tribes: functional particles(e.g., pronominal S), which should be dealt with as a regular part ofspeech; decorative pafticles (like 4 in certain context), ubiquitous inparallel prose and allied genres; and attitudinizing particles, which con-vey the writer's mood toward the statement to which they are attached.(There is another category of particles, which grammarians call i$i orth '#,1 or flh '4, "expletives," out of sheer despair, because they areignorant of their real functions. But this class may rurn out to belong toone of the three categories mentioned above.)

Täke rhe Confucian saying ü+ it ,a z- f . The last z is generally ac-cepted as expressing the speaker's modesty (or mock-modesty) because

it expresses the conclusion drawn from a supposition, whether expressed

or not. In the present case, the protasis is a gentleman (ä la Confucius)and his activities; Confucius is here making the statement tz'u-ta withhis idealized gentleman as the frame of reference or even as the point ofdeparture. The compoand erh-i ('h e,) is translated, in the classroomcant, with "and that's all." But from what point of view? The hereticalrranslation, "Problem of style? Get rhe meaning across and then srop,"seems to prove that the translator took erh-i as referring to or continuingthe act expressed in the verb ta. What Confucius intended to say wasprobably something like this: "As for your question about the problemof style, there is nothing more for me to say in answer than that youshould be able to get your meaning across." Which should have re-minded the inrerrogator of the poor estimate Confucius had of a mere"literary" man, who may be eloquent with the three hundred odes butperforms miserably as an ambassador. In short, it is a mistake to readsuch particles into the words of the statement itself. Attitudinizing par-ticles, then, have to be given a psychological and even a psychoanalyticaltreatment,

When it comcs to decorative particles, a totally different approach isnccded: an aesthctic trcatmcnt. A convenientparallel is to be found inthc practicc of calligraphy. As is r.vell known, no calligrapher starts a

strol<c ahrrrptly; hc r:rtht'r ilc'ploys and mancuvers for a whilc the forcesof his lrrrrsh l»rcl< rrrrtl firrt lr, rrp ulrd down. 'I'hcrr hc carric:s his bruslrresolrrtc'ly firrrvrrltl rrrrtil lrc lt'uclrt's lr yxrint whcrt: tlrt: rlirct:tiott is r«l

clrrrrrgt'; Irt'r<: lrt, rlocs tlrc s:rrrrc tlrirtg ns irt tltc hcginnirrg. Nor rl<lcs hc lifr

t26 Achilles Fang

the brush without tvvarning, for he tarries a while before he cornpletes thestroke. Just as there are many ways of execudng the initial, medial, and

final stages in executing a stroke (see the Eight Tbchniques of Yung,

;i< ä ,r d*), there are any number of particles for the initial, medial,and final positions in a sentence. Täke for example the beginning of Ou-yang Hsiu's essay,

*A,+l ü /t4, E it-, /,* iL et A tt tA, A ä m gi, t<lil, t'u' /- +fi < e\ #,.h ++ z 4 A e-.

The rhree {,t can hardly be called functional. In fact, according to Chu

Hsi, Ou-yang Hsiu did not insert the first rrryo erh in the original draft;it was probably for rhetorical or decorative reasons that Ou-yang Hsiuinserted them later, for they would make the first sentences less abrupt.The reader has to take a pause when he cornes to erh,looking backwardto the tw.o conventional and hence challenging words and looking for-ward, with certain anticipation, to what is corning; in a way, Ou-yangHsiu is playing a cat-and-mouse game with his reader. Thus considered,

the two initial erh are merely stylistic. It is baffiing, therefore, to under-

stand what Dr. Walter Sirnon means when he asserts that the Parricleerk placed before "the verb of which it is the obiect" contrihutes to

"greater precision of thought" (cf ' Asia Major, New Series, II, 1). Thetwo chik here are also quite superfluous medial particles. The final rL,ofcourse, belongs to the third category, but it has also a rhetorical use

here: by its assertative force it challenges the reader to think, and (ifheis so rninded) to disagree even; but, if he wants to read on, he has to

grant"the truth of the statement prT terut at least.

Frankly, all these particles could have been excised without damaging

an iota of the writer's meaning and attirude; even the functional ,rL,

which subsumes the two preceding sentences, coulcl have been omitted.1+'ä .E r+ *6,'ä ä §+]t rl1, /-+frit tA',+ *ltr ,'tr{r,) couldhaveconveyed everything meant and irplied in the original passage; thereader could take recourse to, what John Addington Symonds in his

book on blank verse tetrms, "sense and pauses" in his own fashion, In-deed, the characteristic feanrre of particles, as far as they are of the

second andf or third category, is their dispensability.This being so, it is wisdom not to translate particles at all rather than

to translate wrongly; rather stryprcssil aeri rhan ru'tgestio faLri. As longrs perticlists do not comc fortlt with somc syntltc:tic strg[{(:sti()ns, tllcprirrciplc oIprrticlcs can lrt: strrtcrl rltus: Prtrticlcs urc like porttrlgr:rphy;()nc ln:ly struly tlrcnr if onc'lurri ir tirst(: firr tltetrt un(l ()ll('ott1llrt l«r lttt«rw

thcrrr (irrsr ls 'llcng-tz.ii rrurint;rirrcrl tlrt' rteccssity ol'littou,itt11 tlrt' :trt ttf

The Difficulty of Translation r27

burglary in order to protect his property), but it is not wise to talkabout thern publicly.

The HsinT'ang-shu sentence * ,* + n ü §. *'p is faultlesslv ren-

dered in: "At the age of forty, he finally traveled to the capital." Butthe translator must give himself away in a foomote: "Possibly the par-ticle nai 73 here merely serves to connect the preceding adverbialphrase with the predicate. Bur tr helieve it fits the context lietter to takeit in the sense of 'finally,' 'at last.' Literati inrerested in an official career

usually \Ment to the capital when they were about thirty years old."The original Chiu T'ang-sltu, hawever, has: * * + A u! i* ei,which shows that the Hsin T'ang-shu writer altered { to ft . FIe couldequally well have altered it to ,rz or 44, or even omitted it altogerher.When rhe translator wrote "finally" he was not translating rl but was

merely interpolating a felicitous word. One wonders horv he wouldhave translated all the € (/9) occurring in the spirited story ofHsiang Ynin Shik-clzi. (Chavannes didn't.) Would he also translate thetwenty ..r&, in Ou-yang Hsiu's piece 6$ A 4 ltl (Giles didn't.)

It seems that the Anglican archbishop of Quebec was right when he

said, "Logical-minded unimaginative people make great mistakes bystudying the texts too intensively. . . . Yoil need to relax-to oPen yourhearr-to listen."

6. Quotatton and All.usisn

I have heard that the finest flower of Chinese educarion is thatwhich, sreeped in the Chinese classics, can convey in three pages ofallusive writing, to the right readers, what would otherwise takethirtY'

E. E. KrrlBrr

Allusive style, of course, is not the monopoly of Chinese literarure;it is a uuly universal aspect of all literarures, Past and present. Themodernist poeüy in the West seems to vie with ancient Chinese litera-ture in this respect. We know tirat in spite of vociferous denunciationThe Waste Landhas been translated into several languages by rnen with-out serious claims to comprehending all the bätes noires of the Saturday

Ileaie"u of Literature; and yet they seem to have produced tolerablyacclrrate versions.

Whcthcr bccausc of'thc supposedly abysmal gulf berween the Chi-ncsc nrind antl occirlt:ttl:tl lttttttrrlity or for othcr reasons, Sinological

trrrnsllrtors s('('nr l() slrtrrrlrlt' vt'l'y frcqucntly ovcr tlttotetiolls and allu-siotts. \'ct, ()n(: crlnn()t lrrtt :rtlrrritr: tlrc tolcrallly llcctlriltc vcrsiotts tltt:yIr:rvr'lltrr,lrrt't'.1 irt r;1,it.'rrl'tltt',r.l,lri.'l'lre f;rct is, it is:rlrtrost :tlrvltys rt:'

r28 Acbilles Fang

warding to track down the immediate and ultimate sources of allusionsand quotations, for more often than not they are glossed or commentedon in those sources; hence, a translator works against odds, by despisingthose sources.

The sentence

iu'a, ft ab \+ +.b,.c- *,r* Fb * s .ä 4,.,r.x *.

is rendered: "In the scriptures there is the saying: whoever adds to thehonor and renown of his parents will be successful, whoever disgraceshis parents will be unsuccessful." What scriptures? Certainly not Exod.20:12 ("Flonor thy father and thy mother...")? Had the translatorlooked into Li-chi, "Nei-tse," he would have found that in

l. 4 r& tL,r* tb *. g- Qe \4 4 A,.y- ;r.

Jtt & r. _*, ,9. fl4 \ rt ä +, .,2. f. x,

where the key word kuo means, as Cheng Hsüan says, i* ("resolute,unwavering"). "Certe perficiet . . . certe non perficiet" (Couvreur).

It is not difficult to discover rhe locus classicus, but it is, on the otherhand, not so easy to be able to recognize a quotation or allusion as such;a second sight or a sixth sense is perhaps needed for this. The most dif-ficult and most important thing for the Eanslator, however, is to be ableto evaluate the quoted passage in the context of the text he is translating.Ir is not enough to refer the reader to the locus classicu.r or quote someoneelse's Eanslation of the passage. For it often happens that the writer ofthe text may not have interpreted the passage in question in the samev/ay as the translator thinks, on the best authority, it should be inter-preted. Furthermore, it is quite possible that the writer was not a con-scientious scholar; he may have quoted the passage indirectly from a

secondhand source. A parallel instance is furnished by the later FrenchSymbolists who thought they were üue disciples of Edgar Allan Poe, allthe while they were misinterpreting him on the basis of a secondhandauthoriry.

Literary history has neglected this process of misinterpretation and misun-derstanding. We need to investigate, not the dreary chains of influence wherewe can show that one writer copied another in literal detail, but the morefascinating chains which link one poet to another he has never read but onlyread about or heard about, whose ideas vaguely apprehcndcd or cvcn Inis-apprehended serve as catalytic agents for his own dcvcloptttcnt.'l

To give a concrete example, Lu Chi's Wen-fu has thc following rwolincs:

.1{l I,': ,r\ y 1., /r,, i,=. lrl tlr ,{, ri,l ii,,t ,li tl ,r, tfr}!-, at .l';r rL f ii, & .

The Difficulty of Translation

What does Lu Chi mean by Xi+ tL, which is here made parallel to,g E? In my version inthe Hart)ard lournal of Asiatic Studies I rendered

the last line with "Essentially, words must communicate, and reason

must dominate; prolixity and long-windedness are not commendable,"and referred the reader to Legge's Analects, Page 305. This bare refer-ence to an existing translation is highly irresponsible, not much more

creditable than the total silence maintained by the three previous trans-lators. From the very fact that the two lines containing the phrase con-

clude a discussion of the ten genres, it seems beyond doubt that Lu Chidid not take the Confucian saying iiü 4 *, e, f. in the usual accePta-

tion. The traditional interpretation of this enigrnatic saying seems tohave gone into Legge's translation: "In language it is sirnply requiredthat iiconvey the rneaning." That is, a gentleman as idealized by Confu-

cius was essentially a Homo politiczs, whose interest in life should be much

more comprehensive than mere stylistic accomplishrnent; hence, he has

no dme to waste on polishing his literary ability, for all he has to do is tobe able to make others understand him-a sentiment which is so poign-antly echoed by Hsiang Yü when he said that all he wanted in the art ofletters was the ability to write down his name (ä N vÄ iL iL b ,a u) .

And this interpretation seems to have been in Yen Fu's rnind when he set

up as desiderata of translation ,i? &- irlt, "Accuracy, Intelligibility,Elegance."

It is, however, doubtful if Lu Chi accepted this interpretation in his

context, especially when he rounds out the paragraph (or strophe) withan injunction against prolixity and long-windedness. It is quite possible

rhat he intended what Ezra Pound meant when he interpreted the Con-

fucian saying within discourse what matters is

to get it ecross c poi basta.

If he did, there is no question of Lu Chi's "vaguely apprehending"the Confucian meaning; a scholar of no mean accomplishment, he musthave wilfully distorted the import of the Sage.

And I like Augustine Birrel. I happened to correct him when he said that the Apocry-

lrha was nor read in the Church services; and again when he said that Elihu the Jebusitewäs one of Job's comfortcrs. IIc tried to override me in both points, but I called for a

Iliblc and provcd thcrn. I Ic srid, glowcring very kindly at me: "l will say to you what'l'h«rrnes Olrlylc ortcc s:ritl (o a your)g nran who caught him out in a misquotation,'Yrung nun, yolr nrc lrc:rrlirr11 srleililrr frrr tht: pit of I'ldl!"'

l.ikc llolrc:rl ( lr',rvt'r;, tlrc Sirurlogical stutlcut ltrts t«r cllq: Scrilltttrc forIris llrrrlxlsr', rrrtrrrirt,llirl ol' tlrt' e()llsc(lucrlcc.

t29

r3o Achilles Fang

7. Grammar and Dictionary

Lisez, lisez; ierczla grammaire .

Gusrevr Scnlncel

Un dicrionnaire peut toujours 6tre amdlior6.

Csavexxrs

In recent years a number of vernacular grammärians, some of tliemdetermined to live down the allegedly idiosyncratic analogic or anagogicor even bifocal reasoning of the Chinese, have been producing gram-matical trearises. And there have been also no srnall nurrber of Sinolo-gists who, laudably following the dictum docendo discimus, do not seem

to mind washing their dirty linen in public. When in 1916 Mr. F{u Shihwrote to the editor of the f-Isin Ch'ing-n,ien advocating Literary Revolu-tion, he managed to put "Insist on Grammar" as one of the eight pointsin his program. This is a bit sulprising because such a schoolmasterlyGebot was not to be found in the Imagist credos r,vhich must have in-spired that program. But it is not so suqprising to see Ch'en Tü-hsiu (theeditor of the journal) and Ch'ien Hsüan-t'ung reacting violently againstthat injunction.

Ch'en Tu-hsiu thought (and Ch'ien Hsüan-t'ung confirmed it) that, as

grammar in the usual senses of the r'l,ord does not exist in Chinese, whatDr. Hu Shih considered to be grammar should be, as had always been,

relegated rc Stilistik (or rhetoric). Probably the writer had in mind YüYäeh's Ku-shu I-x Chü-li and its continuations. At any rate, it cannot treseriousiy dispured that books litr<e that have more use for Sinologicalsnrdents than Gabelentz ar even Stanislas Julien. Gustave Schlegel was

not the best of Sinologists; yet he had a modicum of sound sense when he

advised his students to forger their gramrnar. Indeed, no one has ever

learned to read ancient Chinese texts from analytical gramrnar; a warn-ing example is that of Angelo Zouol| SJ., who is hnown for his impos-ing tornes of Cursus.In his Latin gramlnar written in Chinese the phrases

(chü) are mostly perfect, but the juxtaposition is nighrnarish. It wouldtake a genius to string together those phrases (some in the Shih-chi style ,some in thefw style, some sheer colioquialisms) into coherent sentences.

The sooner we forget grammar, the speedier will we recovcr c;tlr sanity.Another fedsh of a group of Sinologisrs who still thinl< (lhincsc

(classical Chinesc) is a "languagc" in thc convcntioltll sctlsc is tllcirIirrrr colrviction tlt:rt t ltcrft'cr rlicrioltrtry will strto«rtlr tltt'ir lvrry. Al:ts,

tlrt'y rrrt'rvlrorittg tr(icr (:rlst'1iorls. l,ilst, sttclt lt rlit'tiorrrrly is ilrr;,ossiIrlc

lo ttt:tlit'; ttt'xt, rvlt:tr t':tt'tlrl1' ttrlt'ir;:t lu'o lttttltlt't'tl t'r,lttttlt',lttli"tt:tt'y trr

;url,,{)n('.r r\ltcr':rll ir; r;;rrrl ;rn,l tl,rttt', tltr'nr('irirrrrl' is rlt'tt ttttttrt,l lt,,ttr tltt'

context; ergo, a translator must get a firm grasp of his context in the

largest sense of the word, and there no dictionary will avail him. More-over, a dictionary is no help if the wrong entry is chosen.

It is generally known that Chinese scholars themselves seldom use

any diciionary except the Shuo-um and the Ching-cki Tiuan-ku $tanYüan); certainly, Sinologists can profit from the rnonumental Shua'qsrn

Chiek-tzü tr{w-lin and Shuo-wrn T'ung-hsün Ting-shr"zg (which incor-porates most of rhe Ching-chi Tsuan-ku entries), pl'ts P'ei-zaen Yün-fu.No seif-respectirxg uanslator should use Mathews, Giles, Couvreur,

etc., after he has studied ayear, unless it be to find English synonyms'

Asanillustration,takethesentence t+ k l-L z *of llsn-shul\jA/3b(ed. Wang Flsien-ch'ien) or & 'k rt- 1* as in Lieh-nü Chuan' Whatdoes -S1 mean here? Which of the three dictionary meanings should be

acceptecl? l'Music" (*nglök / ngäk. / yüeh) ? 'J.y, dissipation" (*gläk /täk" / tä) ? "To like" (nglög / ngcw" / yao) ? A recent translator seems

to have accepted the first meaning, for his version makes the sentence

"to make the night long with rnusic." He probably did not look into ttiecorresponding prrtrg. in Shik-chi 3: e, +,-'.e- Z 4k, "il donna des

orgies qui duraient täute la nuit" (Chavannes). Of course there is no

reason why Fal Ku should not have meant music when he altered äÄ toi3: . But Pan Ku was no puritan, nor had he to reckon with Mrs. Grundy'Hence it is more likely that he used -*S in the second sense, which comes

nearest to ilk-.In fact, it must have been used in the sense of "#

# inthe phrase e4 )A t* * occurring a few lines ahead in Pan Ku's own

text. What boots a dictionary then? Probably rhe uanslator was tryingto give a sophisticated tranilation; rvimess "to make nigk long" forAr-&- ia- ("in order to prolong the night"?). If it comes of sophistica-

tion it is quite unformnaie, for the sense of the entire sentence is totallyaltered.

The coupletl*t E :*-')al t9. . ffL 61 ,#t ** +a

is rendered by a recent scholar as:

I)clicatc clouds dim the Milky Way,l)riz-z.lirrg rain drops frorn the wu-t'uug trees.

'l'hc trirnslator sccnrs to ltavc l:rbored on this; witness the alliteration,nrorc or lc"^s corrcspottrlitrl; to tltt: original schcme . Ilut "drizzling rain

dr<4'ts.['n»n tltc wrt t'llnli lrtt's" i-- t«rtally flrlsc, ftrr it drops onto the

ru,, t',,,,g lt.lrvt's; lltr' lrot'l t'orrltl Itt'rtt' llt(: tilt()() ol- t'rtirrtlro|s. ()[ crlttrsC,

rro tlit'tiorr:rly ()t llt:unnt:u ( iul ('\,('r'lt,,pt'to tltlit'ltotit't'.,1'sttt'lt irr.livitlrr:rl

,'x lrn rl rlcs.

The Difi.culty of Translation I3I

rjz Achilles Fang

Needless to say, amateur Sinologists whose obsession with their pet

theories is as great as their veneration ofdictionaries tend to lose sight

of context. Täke a rranslation of the Passage which summarizes the gist

of dialectical metaphysics of the "Book of Changes":

When the sun goes, the moon comes;

When the moon goes, the sun comes.

Sun and moon alternate; thus light comes

into being.

When cold goes, heat comes;

When heat goes, cold comes.

Cold and heat alternate, and thus the yearcompletes itself.

The past contracts.The furure expands'Contraction and expansion act uPon each other;

hereby arises that which furthers.

It is almost unbelievable that the translator took it A and *- # as

"the past" and "the future." The third strophe means that the sun' the

moon, heat, and cold go because they have to stooP (lit. "bend") before

the cyclic law, and cäme because rhey are allowed to have their due

(lit. ,iunbend',) in the cyclic system. That chehere serves the function ofquotation marks can be seen try anyone who has examined the context.(It is also possible that che is a personifier; i.e., wang-che may meanttthe goer.")

A similar example of the oversophistication is: "When anger, sorrow'joy, pleasure are in being but are not manifested, the mind may be said

to be in a state of Equilibrium; when the feelings are stirred and co-

operate in due degree the mind may be said to be in a state of Har-mony." Which is meant to be a translation of

& U. l*.# <,t rt;E { *, z*t1 lub + äi td Z +".

As the translation is made to support the synaesthesis theory, there is

no doubt that the word ((co-operate" is to be understood in a normalsense: the four feelings, after they are sdrred one and all, uork togethcr

in an ideally harmoniäus manner. This is a unique intelpretation of the

passage. Of course, the original text is vaepe; and there is nothing toforbid our translator from taking the four feelings as working and acting

simultaneously, but anyone who has studied all the comPetcnt commen-

tarics on the text will have no tlottbt whatsocver thar thc writcr of the

l)ilsrixgc probably irttcrtilctl t'o lcavt: thc mattcr to tllc rc:ttlt'r',s sctrsc of

Ptrllxrrliott lls l() wllclllcr lt<'sltrltrkl c«rttsitlc:r<ltrc fccling ()r lll()rc tltlrt onc

r;rirrt'rl. I tc will :lr xny rult'lr;rvc rrr» lr<'sit:ttiorr in tlrirrkilll.l tll:lt tlrc stirrctl

The Dificulty of Translation ryj

feeling or feelings work in harmony with the personality of the manwhose feeling or feelings are sdrred arnd, tpso fauo, with the cosmicscheme itself. The translator is likely to defend his position by referringto the dictionary meaning of rrL as "all."

8. Tiaduttore, Tiaditare

And the md of all aur crploringlVill bc to arriae ,u)herc ,tDc startcdAnd knolt) the place for the frst time.

All the difficuldes mentioned in the above can and should be sur-mounted, sooner or later, by honest and earnest s$dents. But there is abig roadblock still looming large before tlem: our ignorance of Chinesepsychology. What do we know about terms like *ä, tä, etc.? Andwhat does d really mean? And when shall we come to know moreprecisely about all these terms?

illa crntat, nos t^ccnru§: quando ver Qeilit mrum?quando fiun uti chclidon ut taccrc desinam?

As long as we are ignorant of their meanings, we will have to be cautiousabour what we do with them; we should certainly abstain from readingour favorite theories into the innocent texts.

Meanwhile I see no reason why we should desist from translatingChinese texts; we cannot expeft to enjoy "another lifetime," nor wouldour translations be perfect if we enjoyed several. But translations madewith all conscientiousness are rhe sine qudnonof all Chinese scholarship,and the effort to translate heightens one's awareness of his own heritageeven as he seeks to understand another.

NOTESL The last word on the art of tranilation was said in 1950 by Marianne Moore, the

gifted translator of La Fontaine's Fables: "The 6rst requisite of a translation, it seems tome, is that it should not sound like a translation. That similacrum of spontaneiry can bea fascinadng thing indeed. A master axiom for all writing, I feel, is that of Confucius:'When you have done justice ro the meaning, stop,' That implies restraint, that disciplineis cssential."

2. Which is what Goethe charged Heine with but is also a term used by Lu Chi(#.t).

). Cf.4+ * .L- z ii r- r}-,,fr- ,.'' & ä,1*-Y 'i" f+ inthe"GreatPref-:tcc" to thc .Säiü. I)ocs this rrrc:rrr thc slrnc thing as Ezra Pound's dcfinition: "Poetry isl vcrbal st:rtculcnt of crrrotiorrll vrrlucs. A pocrl is an cmotional valuc vcrbally statcd"?

4. J:tcolr lsuut:s,'I'l.rr'llttL'u,rotut,l ol' Modcrn l'ottry (l,orrrkrrr, 195 l), P. 19,