Confucius's Greatest Hits

I'd like to post a few of my favorites. WHAT ARE YOURS? Whenever I get distracted or lose a sense of direction, my father hands me something Chinese to translate. This was given to me post Tiananmen Massacre, when I returned to America in exhaustion and confusion. I like to quote the passage about stability, stillness, calmness, contemplation, attainent, for friends are almost always delighted with its usefuness. (The five layers of peace, I like to say.) I think Confucius's wisdom can be of huge value in to the 21st Century West. I welcome corrections and suggestions to make this a better translation.

From “Da Xue: The Great Learning

The Dao of the Great Learning:
Mindfulness to the emanation of integrity;
Mindfulness of perpetual renewal toward becoming a better human being;
Mindful to attain these greatest reaches of goodness.
Quit your confusing thoughts and there is stability;
After stability there is stillness;
After stillness there is calmness;
After calmness there is contemplation;
After contemplation there is attainment.
Objects have beginning and an end;
Matters have a start and finish.
Knowledge of the proper sequence leads to nearness of the Dao.
Work toward perfection of self. Bring order to one’s family. Govern the state. Bring peace to All-Under-Heaven.
Only after working on perfecting the self can one bring order to one’s family. After there is order in one’s family, can one govern the state. After the successful management of state comes Peace to All-Under-Heaven.
Perfect. Bring order. Govern. Bring peace.

Without wanting to trivialize the ideas underlying it, I think making a better translation means covering some of the territory of the It's hard to translate topic.

You need to decide (or evolve) what kind of translation you want. Do you want it to be literal? Poetic? Archaic? (Which covers a lot of ground in English: Shakespeare, King James Bible, Milton, Pope; though clearly not as long a period as Chinese.) Aphoristic?

That last needs some clarification. I don't have in mind something that we'd consider borderline racist today, like Charlie Chan. Even in English aphorisms push the boundaries of the language, going all the way to the Gates Foundation slogan, "To whom much has been given, much is expected," recently quoted by Bush, which is downright ungrammatical.

I like this immensely:

1.16 Analects

不患人之不己知，
患不知人也

Waley translates this as:

The Master said, "(The good man) Does not grieve that other people do not recognize his merits. His only anxiety is lest he should fail to recognize
theirs.

But I think it has less rosy meanings. Put it in casual terms: assess others
before they can assess you. This passage could well belong in "The Art
of Warfare."

Why listen to yourself talk? You already know what you know. Listen to others.

>2 MMcM: MMcM--As the topic of this thread may suggest, I want to have some fun and make use of what I am learning in reading Confucius. Academic learning is fabulous, but let's be looser here. May we? Just throwing out the Da Xue for starters. I'll take corrections, suggestions for better, more poetic, more literal here or under "It's Hard to Translate" from you, from Fogies, from anyone.

子貢欲去朔之餼羊。 子曰﹕ “賜也! 爾愛其羊﹐我愛其裡

Zi Gong wanted to do away with the sacrificial sheep connected with the
inauguration of the first day of each month (new moon). The Master said,
"Ci! You value the sheep; I value the ceremony." Ci4 is the name of Zi Gong.

This passage brings the Zhou bronzes to vivid life for me. I've always
associated the bronzes with staid museum settings, but coming to the above
made me realize these bronzes had frequent usage, were greasy or bloody
with mutton. It's in these details of "The
Analects" that the ancient practices seem alive. This morning, I started
looking at the small "shrine" we have at home, before which we put a few
pot stickers during New Year. I sense we are reenacting ancients ceremonies,
but on a far more humble, less bloody scale :) Nice to come across the sacrifices in Iliad in my recent reading.

I've been reading a version of "The Analects" that comes with Englsh and Modern Chinese translations. It's been very frustrating. In my particular edition, I've found instances where the editors, not able to understand the ancient Chinese, translated a not-quite-right Waley into modern Chinese (!) Confucius's original intent and meanings have been debated by academics for centuries, because the Chinese character usage has changed over the millennia. Customs and practices, too; for the modern reader, it is very difficult to understand what the original truly meant. My Taiwan edition of "The Analects" is better in that the editors were very careful not to translate what they did not fully understand. They annotated the words in questions with examples of usage in other ancient texts.

4.18. 事父母几諫﹐ 見志不從﹐ 又敬不違, 反勞而不怨.

I kid my parents about this one:

The Master said, "In serving his father and mother a man may give advice. But if he sees that they do not follow his advice, he should resume a respectful attitude and not thwart them. He should serve them without resentment."

Two other translations, which I believe have big errors:

The Master said, "In serving his parents, a son may remonstrate with them, but gently; when he sees that they do not incline to follow his advice, he shows an increased degree of reverence, but does not abandon his purpose; and should they punish him, he does not allow himself to murmur." --anonymous

The Master said, "In serving his father and mother a man may gently remonstrate with them. But if he sees that he has failed to change their opinion, he shuld resume an attitude of deference and not thwart them; may feel discouraged, but not resentful." --Waley

Anonymous is James Legge.

On this page, you can see that both he and Couvreur oddly translate 勞 as something about punishment. Even Lau has wearing oneself out not complaining, as opposed to the more obvious working hard like you did.

Do you have Confucian Analects, The Great Learning, and The Doctrine of the Mean? Because Legge has a footnote that 內則 says 撻之流血, which is apparently where they are getting this brutal idea.

Myself, I'm not qualified to pass judgment on any of this.

I've been wondering why there isn't a Chinese treasure house of folk and fairy tales of the Japanese's range? Could it be because Confucius said he did not talk about the supernatural and so pretty much slowed the flow to a relative trickle? The Japanese mukashibanashi are so rich, full of humor, I laugh out loud when I read them. The English translations don't capture the spirit of the original. Darn that Confucius.

Belle, there is a treasure trove of folk and fairy tales in Chinese culture.

The late, and great, Wolfram Eberhard produced a number of studies of this folk material, in English and German. As early as 1937 he published in German "Types of Chinese Foktales" (Typen chinesischer Volksmarchen), collecting and indexing by motif about 3,000 tales.

A collection of 79 representative tales in English translation, with extensive notes, classifications, and commentary is his Folktales of China (revised ed. 1965).

Modern Chinese publishing houses, including those in the PRC period, have issued numerous collections of folk tales. I haven't seen those myself.

You are of course correct that there was a bias among the "high culture" writers against folk materials. Since the "folk" were, by definition, unschooled in the classics, how could their stories count as literature? Inevitably, despite this bias and often not acknowledged, there was a lot of inspiration picked up from time to time by serious writers and poets from folk sources.

After all, the Shi Jing -- although attributed to Confucius as editor -- is a collection of both courtly and popular songs and poems. Their canonical status in Chinese culture may sometimes obscure the fact that about half the works in the book are -- explicitly -- of folk origin (風).

And from 1911 on, gaining momentum with the passing decades, there was a major 'corrective' drive to collect and publish folk materials -- the expression of the "People," vs. the Confucian literati.

>10 pechmerle: Ah, ha! I was waiting for someone to correct me. Thank you, Pechmerle. Moments ago, I purchased a copy of Folktales of China online. I am looking forward to reading it.

It just seems to me the Japanese culture rocks with these funny, sweet, hilarious, ribald, magic-filled stories, and I have to really dig to find a copy of 聊齋誌異 Liao Zai Zhi Yi, which I am told are mostly ghost stories. I'll to read to find out. The Japanese countryfolk and aristocracy loved the mukashibanashi 昔話, so these tales got recorded. In the case of the Chinese, the aristocracy disdained such "illogical" tales, so much was lost.

Ten years ago, my children's book editors had wanted me to write my recreations of Chinese folk tales, but all I could think of were the didactic tales which are not a lot of fun for kids (or for me).

6.20

子曰﹕知之者不如好之者﹐ 好之者不如樂之者

The Master said: He who merely understands it is not equal to he who prefers it, and he who only prefers it is not equal to he who takes delight in it. --B.Y.

The Master said, "To prefer it is better than only to know it. To delight
in it is better than merely to prefer it." --attributed to Waley

The Master said, "They who know the truth are not equal to those who
love it, and they who love it are not equal to those who delight in it."
--also attributed to Waley

I like the third translation better because, for me, it makes clear what "it" is -- truth.

>13 Airycat: Ha, ha, I like mine better--just kidding. I don't think the original points specifically to TRUTH, but it encompasses it, so if the 3rd one is in fact Waley, he's tweaking it too much. For me, Confucius was saying, Belle, it's good you delight in your work, because you really don't know what you are doing most of the time ;-)

6.23

子曰﹕知者樂水﹐ 仁者樂山。知者動﹐仁者靜。知者樂﹐仁者壽。

The Master said: The wise delight in water; the benevolent delight in mountains. The wise take action; the benevolent remain still. The wise are joyful; the benevolent are long-lived. --B.Y.

(my attempt at making a decent translation. Happy to take corrections)

The Master said, "The wise man delights in water, the Good man delights in mountains. For the wise move; but the Good stay still. The wise are happy; but the Good, secure.--attributed to Waley.

(I say "attributed to" because this book from China is rife with errors.)

I am told that Chiang Kai-shek used to pose for photographers as he meditated upon a body of water and/or distant mountains. His publicists knew their Confucius.

I like your use of benevolent over the use of Good in the attributed translation. Good is a very weak translation. I think the word still is the still as in 'still water' and not the still of remaining in one place.

But 'it' isn't actually specified. One of the things I like so much about Chinese is the lack of specificity.

>12 belleyang:

Waley#2 seems to really be Legge. In print, the truth is in italics.

The translator needs to decide whether to translate a couple of things that aren't explicit in the text: what "it" is ("truth") and that these are narrowing subsets ("only; merely").

>15 belleyang:

Lau goes with "benevolent" as well. Both Legge and Couvreur include footnotes pointing out that the wise / benevolent are like water / mountains respectively as well as delighters in it.

I'm curious whether hearing, "like water" (spoken in your best Keye Luke voice if you like), one's first association is the motion of a stream or the stillness of a lake.

>13 Airycat: After reading everyone's comments, I understand that "it" is meant to be unspecified, and we can apply it to anything.

This really points out how important good translations are. Since I can't go back to check the original, I am dependant on the translator to get it right. Had I not seen "it" translated as truth, I would have come to the above conclusion sooner. Seeing the different translations, I assumed that truth was implied specifically, though not stated specifically.

>15 belleyang: I like the use of benevolent for the same reason as mvrdrk

I am wondering about the use of the word still. Since the first and third comparisons are not exclusive, why does the middle one appear to be? Is there a true translation that makes the benevolent and wise compatable or is this middle one meant to show a bigger difference between them?

>18 mvrdrk: Okay Ms. Mvrdrk, what happened to that great Mencius you deleted? Can you put it up in "Fractions of Gold, Fragments of Jade?" with a translation of yours? At your leisure.

>20 Airycat: Airycat--Good question. I don't think Waley should have used "but," which denotes exclusivity. Wise is good, benevolent is good too.

>19 MMcM: MMcM said: I'm curious whether hearing, "like water" (spoken in your best Keye Luke voice if you like), one's first association is the motion of a stream or the stillness of a lake.

A lively stream came to mind immediately, and when the word "mountain" came up as contrast, my mind shifted to a placid lake.

>20 Airycat:, 21

It seems to me that all the comparisons are meant to be contrastive, even if only the second one is logically exclusive. wise: vigorous moving water vs. virtuous: eternal still mountain.

A lot of time is spent throughout the work in attempting to define 仁 (or avoid doing so). In this particular case, the point seems to be to define how it differs from 知. Likewise, 7.6 seems to want to show how it differs from 德.

The distinction does not mean that the two qualities are incompatible.

Another thing that is completely lost in translation is that the first phrase is used initally as a contrast of joys and then as a contrast of joy itself. The wise man is happy with ... the wise man is happy period.

>16 mvrdrk:

Waley devoted several pages of his introduction to jên. In particular, he lays out his justification for translating it as 'Good' with a capital G. He further rails against 'humane', 'altruistic' and 'benevolent'. The text isn't online that I can find, but most of that bit is quoted here. The words cut off at the bottom are "ludicrously so", which seems a bit extreme.

I went to Gutenberg.org to see if they had any Confucius. They have two. One is translated by Legge and one by him and Sir John Francis Davis and William Jennings. I also found one book by Whaley, but it wasn't Confucius.

I finally just found my copy. It's translated by D. C. Lau. Tiny print. It'll have to wait 'til I get my new glasses. :^|

>23 MMcM: Waley devoted several pages of his introduction to jên. In particular, he lays out

Waley might be right, but 'good' isn't a good translation either. After all, the Chinese make a distinction between the various kinds of human social good, at least as I learned it. (Embarrassingly, via road names, which I have to recite in order if I'm to be sure not to forget any, and sometimes I accidentally add 'north road' :-) to the end of this list): 八德 - 忠孝 仁愛 信義 和平 (roughly translated- eight virtues - loyalty, filial piety, humanitarianism/benevolence/magnanimity, love, trusting/trustworthness, justice/generosity/righteousness, getting along-ed-ness/affable-ness?, peacefulness/calmness)

I have been wanting to ask, is 知 'wise' classically? In the modern colloquial, I would have translated it 'knowledgable'. Hmmm, the dictionary tells me it can also mean 'to control, to direct' which actually sheds some light, however accidentally, on this.

Goofing off and highly inaccurate - those in the know delight in whitewater rapids, the easy-going delight in mountains, the knowledgable take action, the easy-going are content in place, the knowlegable are happy, the easy-going live long. LOL!

I continue to read The Analects. I was amazed to come to this saying as it perfectly encapsulates my beliefs and also my feelings about the PRC. Translation, mine.

8.13

子曰:
笃信好学. 守死善道。
危邦不入; 乱邦不居。
天下有道则见; 无道则隐。
邦有道, 贫且践焉,耻也; 邦无道,富且贵焉, 耻也。

The Master says:

Be resolutely of good faith, love learning, and carry out the Way unto death.

Do not enter a dangerous state; do not live in a disorderly state.

If all under heaven is in accord with the Way, show yourself; if all under heaven is not in accord with the way, conceal yourself.

If the Way prevails in a state and you remain poor and degraded, consider yourself shameful; if the Way does not prevail in a state and you are rich and privileged, consider yourself shameful.

>26 belleyang: I particularly like that ending!!

A friend pointed this one out to me, it made me think of you and your LT library, especially when I think of the shame that is my light reading. LOL! No translation from me, though, I'm still digesting this one.

故君子之於學也
藏焉修焉息焉遊焉