Two Voices in One : Essays in Asian and Translation Studies [1 ed.] 9781443863490, 9781443858328

Citation preview

Two Voices in One

Two Voices in One: Essays in Asian and Translation Studies

Edited by

Laurence K. P. Wong, John C. Y. Wang and Chan Sin-wai

Two Voices in One: Essays in Asian and Translation Studies, Edited by Laurence K. P. Wong, John C. Y. Wang and Chan Sin-wai This book first published 2014 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2014 by Laurence K. P. Wong, John C. Y. Wang, Chan Sin-wai and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-5832-3, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-5832-8

CONTENTS Preface ....................................................................................................... vii Acknowledgements ................................................................................... xi There’s a Word for It—Or is There? ........................................................... 1 Stuart H. Sargent, Stanford University Translating a Chinese Garden: Texts and Images from the Kangxi Emperor’s Imperial Poems on The Mountain Estate for Escaping the Summer Heat ......................................................................................... 7 Richard E. Strassberg, University of California, Los Angeles “Multiflorate Splendour”: A Commentary on Three English Translations of Scene 10 of The Peony Pavilion ....................................... 23 John C. Y. Wang, Stanford University Sitting with Sima Qian: Recollections of Translating the Shiji (1988–2011) .............................................................................................. 47 William H. Nienhauser, Jr., University of Wisconsin From the Page to the Stage: Translating Wordplay for the Eye and Translating Wordplay for the Ear ....................................................... 89 Laurence K. P. Wong, Hong Kong Academy of the Humanities Translation Technology on the Fast Track: Computer-Aided Translation in the Last Five Decades....................................................... 105 Chan Sin-wai, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Learning Chinese Expressions through Translation ................................ 151 Chaofen Sun, Stanford University

vi

Contents

Problems in Translating “Circulatory” Terms from Aristotle’s Greek and Mencius’ Chinese: pistis “persuading/being persuaded” and zhì 㱣 “governing/being governed” in English .................................................. 159 Douglas Robinson, Hong Kong Baptist University Contributors ............................................................................................. 175

PREFACE

In looking back upon the development of translation studies over the past decades, in attending international academic conferences, or in reading monographs and collections of essays by translators and scholars of translation studies, we can easily become aware of the highly complex nexus that binds together translation and translation studies on the one hand and a host of other disciplines on the other. We see, for example, translation and translation studies linked to comparative literature, cultural studies, linguistics, semiotics, philosophy, politics, and sociology in titles of books and journal articles as well as in the various themes that organizers of conferences come up with every year. Of the more common academic fields or disciplines, however, Asian Studies is less often associated with translation or translation studies. When the Department of Translation, The Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Stanford University jointly organized an international conference on “Translation and Asian Studies” in 2011, the theme of the conference may have appeared unusual. One may even have asked: “How can Asian Studies and Translation or, for that matter, Translation Studies be yoked together?” The answer to the above question can be found in the entry “East Asian Studies” in Wikipedia: East Asian Studies is a distinct multidisciplinary field of scholarly enquiry and education that promotes a broad humanistic understanding of East Asia past and present. The field includes the study of the region’s culture, written language, history, and political institutions. East Asian Studies is located within the broader field of Area studies and is also interdisciplinary in character, incorporating elements of the social sciences (anthropology, economics, sociology, politics, etc.) and humanities (literature, history, film, etc.), among others. The field encourages scholars from diverse disciplines to exchange ideas on scholarship as it relates to the East Asian experience and the experience of East Asia in the world. In addition, the field encourages scholars to educate others to have a deeper understanding of, and appreciation and respect for, all that is East Asia and, therefore, to promote peaceful human integration worldwide.1 1

Wikipedia, 1 August 2013.

viii

Preface

The entry shows that East Asian Studies encompasses an extremely wide range of disciplines, each of which can be studied alongside translation or translation studies. In view of the multidisciplinary nature of translation studies, therefore, Asian Studies, which covers an even wider scope than East Asian Studies, chimes in naturally with translation studies both at the international conference held two years ago and in the title of this collection of essays, truly reflecting the current trend in the field. What are the advantages, one may ask, of letting the two distinct voices chime together? To answer this question, let us switch to nonfigurative language. First, by looking closely at Asian Studies, a translator or a scholar of translation studies can sharpen his or her awareness of the various issues involved in translation. Second, by establishing a close relationship between Asian languages and Asian cultures on the one hand and translation and translation studies on the other, translators and scholars of translation studies can branch out into many new areas in theoretical terms as well as in terms of practice. In comparison with Style, Wit and Word-Play: Essays in Translation Studies in Memory of David Hawkes and The Dancer and the Dance: Essays in Translation Studies, two companion volumes published also by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in 2012 and 2013 respectively, Two Voices in One: Essays in Asian and Translation Studies contains fewer papers. However, with their new perspectives, these papers are as interesting as those contained in the two volumes published earlier, marking the satisfying completion of three years of international collaboration between the Department of Translation, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, first with the Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Warwick in 2008, then with the Institute for Chinese Studies and China Centre, Oxford University in 2010, and finally with the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Stanford University in 2011. Complementing each other in the larger context of Asian and translation studies, the papers cover a wide range of topics, some of which have rarely been touched upon before. In “There’s a Word for It—Or Is There?” Stuart Sargent, while introducing us to the fascinating world of snuff bottles, tells us the intriguing story of how he grappled with a translation problem that “reared its yellow-ochre head” several years ago, and how, after going back to the pre-fossilization period, he zeroed in on “sparrow brains.” Equally intriguing is Richard Strassberg’s “Translating a Chinese Garden: Texts and Images from the Kangxi Emperor’s Imperial Poems on The Mountain Estate for Escaping the Summer Heat.” In this paper, the

Two Voices in One: Essays in Asian and Translation Studies

ix

author not only takes us on a “guided royal tour” of a resort which was off limits to the Emperor’s subjects, but also shows us how “[a]n important garden in China [...] involved several acts of translation.” In “ ‘Multiflorate Splendour’: A Commentary on Three English Translations of Scene 10 of The Peony Pavilion,” John Wang, with his sensitive and meticulous analysis of three versions of what “is generally considered one of the greatest chuanqi ⁛⣯ plays ever written in China,” transports us back in time, to a period before the Kangxi Emperor was born, when, “[from] dream returning, orioles coil[ed] their song / through all the brilliant riot of the new season / to listener in tiny leaf-locked court.” Travelling even further back in time, to the Han Dynasty, William Nienhauser, Jr. tells us how he and his team went about a truly international project, the sheer magnitude of which is sufficient to take our breath away. His paper, entitled “Sitting with Sima Qian: Recollections of Translating the Shiji (1988–2011),” is valuable and interesting not only from the point of view of translation and translation studies, but also from the point of view of East Asian Studies and Chinese history. Like Nienhauser’s paper, Laurence Wong’s, entitled “From the Page to the Stage: Translating Wordplay for the Eye and Translating Wordplay for the Ear,” also focuses on translation in practice, though certainly not on the breathtaking scale described by Nienhauser. Referring to everyday examples as well as examples taken from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the author discusses the various issues involved in translating the untranslatable. While Stuart Sargent, Richard Strassberg, John Wang, William Nienhauser, and Laurence Wong are making excursions into the world of the humanities in connection with translation and translation studies, Chan Sin-wai is doing something different. In “Translation Technology on the Fast Track: Computer-Aided Translation in the Last Five Decades,” he shows us, with ample convincing evidence, at what tremendous speed computer-aided translation has been developing since 1967, so much so that, after reading the paper, one becomes inclined to replace the phrase “on the Fast Track” in the title with the words “at the Speed of Fibre Optics.” In “Learning Chinese Expressions through Translation,” Chaofen Sun, from the perspective of a linguist and language teacher, looks at translation as a tool for language-teaching. Giving examples that are both entertaining and instructive, he convinces us that even literal translation, a translation technique that appears to have little to commend it, has a role to play in language-teaching. With a teacher who can put literal translation to good use, all is grist to his mill.

x

Preface

Grist to Douglas Robinson’s mill is philosophy. In “Problems in Translating ‘Circulatory’ Terms from Aristotle’s Greek and Mencius’ Chinese: pistis ‘persuading/being persuaded’ and zhì 㱣 ‘governing/being governed’ in English,” the author sees a relationship between two great philosophers who used two widely different languages more than two thousand years ago to get their ideas across, and argues his case cogently, moving freely between two cultures. In view of its many unique features, Two Voices in One, then, is not just another run-of-the-mill collection of essays in translation studies haphazardly put together. On the contrary, it is one that contains new tones, new chords, and new melodies: it is a collection with a difference. Laurence K. P. Wong, John C. Y. Wang, Chan Sin-wai May 2014

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In going over the manuscript of Two Voices in One: Essays in Asian and Translation Studies, we cannot resist the temptation to replay in our minds fond memories of the International Conference on “Translation and Asian Studies,” jointly organized by the Department of Translation, The Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Stanford University and held in the spring of 2011 on the campus of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, to which the volume owes its conception. We say “fond memories,” not only because the conference was a great success, but, more importantly, also because we received encouraging support from many colleagues and friends, without which “success” would have remained a fond hope. We would, therefore, like to express our gratitude once again to Professor Joseph Sung, Vice-Chancellor of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, who came to address the conference despite his busy schedule; to Professor Hsiung Ping-chen, then Dean of the Faculty of Arts, who kindly hosted a dinner in honour of all the participants; to Professor Philip Leung Yuen Sang, current Dean of the Faculty of Arts, who was supportive from beginning to end; to Professor Chaofen Sun, then Chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Stanford University, who did so much to bring about the collaboration between two departments of two fine universities; and to all the distinguished scholars who presented papers at the conference. We are equally appreciative of the support we received from academic and non-academic colleagues in the Department of Translation, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, with whose dedication we were deeply impressed. We would like to thank, in particular, Ms. Rosaline Chan, Ms. Florence Li, Ms. Miranda Lui, and Mr. Andy Liu, who always set themselves high standards when it comes to ensuring the success of the Department’s conferences. Miranda must be mentioned twice. Working closely with us in preparing the manuscript of Two Voices in One, she has become an expert on The Chicago Manual of Style and proved exceptionally efficient in spotting typographical errors lurking in the jungle of words, waiting in ambush to pounce on us. For her meticulous formatting and proofreading

xii

Acknowledgements

as well as for her always reliable co-ordination, let us say a second warm “Thank you!” As in the past two years, we owe Ms. Carol Koulikourdi and Ms. Amanda Millar of Cambridge Scholars Publishing a debt of gratitude for their efficiency and professionalism. Finally, we would like to thank Cambridge Scholars Publishing for its acceptance of our book proposal, thereby recognizing the close but not often noticed relationship between two important disciplines: Asian and Translation Studies. Laurence K. P. Wong, John C. Y. Wang, Chan Sin-wai May 2014

THERE’S A WORD FOR IT—OR IS THERE? STUART H. SARGENT DEPARTMENT OF EAST ASIAN LANGUAGES AND CULTURES STANFORD UNIVERSITY

The market for Chinese snuff bottles has remained robust through the recent stumbles of the world economy. At the first auction of the massive Mary and George Bloch collection of Chinese snuff bottles, on 29 May 2010, a Chinese real-estate tycoon broke the world bidding record for an enamel-on-copper snuff bottle by successfully bidding HK$9,280,000 on one; on 28 November 2010, the same individual set a new record price for a porcelain snuff bottle, HK$8,384,000, for a waisted-gourd-shaped snuff bottle with a painted and moulded gourd-and-vine design on the surface. Of course, there were cheaper bottles, down in the five figures (four figures in US$), but I did not attend these auctions, nor did I telephone in a bid. My participation was as an editor, researcher, and translator. It was I who edited the snuff-bottle descriptions, which had been written in English over the span of a dozen years by Hugh Moss (a well-known dealer and collector who has lived mostly in Hong Kong since the 1970s); and it was I who translated them into Chinese. In the course of this work, I was obliged to deal with the English term root amber. This term is mildly problematic in English insofar as we know now that roots have nothing to do with the colourful striations in the material. It is far more problematic for the translator into Chinese, however, because it designates a variety of amber for which there appears to be no stable Chinese term. It is as if Chinese curators and collectors do not recognize root amber as a discrete type of amber requiring a name. Anyone who works with kinship terms in Chinese and English will recognize this problem of having specific terms in one language and only general terms in the other. I can tell you that Helen is my father’s younger sister, but English does not give me an economical term for that relationship: I can refer to Helen as “my aunt,” even “my paternal aunt,” but beyond that I have to use lots of words to explain what the formal and informal Chinese terms gumei ⥹⥡ and xiao guma ⮷⥹⩥ tell you in two

2

There’s a Word for It—Or is There?

or three syllables. Chinese who come into contact with a root-amber snuff bottle can see what the material looks like (just as I know whether Helen is older or younger than my father, even if the vagueness of English might suggest that it does not really matter), and they have words to describe root amber, but is there a word for amber that looks like this? If not, of course, one has the option of just using the general Chinese term hupo 䏍 䍨. But it happens that there is a Chinese term that was reported in the nineteenth century as a term for root amber, and there are other terms that current texts apply to root amber—as well as other kinds of amber. How I sorted through these options and came to the conclusion that my Chinese language shall have a word for root amber is the topic of this little essay. The problem reared its yellow-ochre head in lot 128 of the first Bloch auction (http://www.e-yaji.com/auction/photo.php?photo=157&exhibition =1&ee_lang=eng). Hugh Moss’s description of the material reads, “Slightly variegated, opaque yellow-ochre, and transparent reddish-brown amber (of the variety known as ‘root amber’).” His commentary adds, “The material that we have come to know as ‘root amber’ has been put to delightful use in this unique bottle, giving the variations in colour a major role in the design”; and “This bottle may be assigned to a small group of irregular, sculptural, root-amber snuff bottles, probably dating from the mid-Qing period, whose members are always spectacular.” The term root amber derives from the fact that this kind of amber was once believed to have been created by resin mixing with earth around the tree roots before the process of fossilization began. As we just mentioned, that theory has been debunked by now. Thus, Moss’s caption shows a careful progression from treating root amber as a conventionally agreedon name that may not be literally accurate (hence the quotation marks) to a simple, unmarked adjectival use of the phrase. The Chinese term that was reported in the nineteenth century as apparently applying to this type of amber is quenao 晨儎 (sparrow brains). Sparrow-brain amber might have been an option in English, if root amber is essentially a misnomer, but Moss decided to use root amber anyway because, as he explains in the print catalogue of the Bloch collection under no. 1575,1 the name is well established among collectors and dealers—and sparrow brains is “not the most romantic of terms.” So, “root amber” it is—in English. But in translating into Chinese, I elected to use quenao, romantic or not. It should be noted that there is no literal equivalent of root amber in Chinese, although the term comes from 1

Hugh M. Moss, A Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles: The Mary and George Bloch Collection, vol. 7 (Hong Kong: Herald International Ltd., 2009).

Stuart H. Sargent

3

a Chinese belief that the roots of pine trees were involved in the genesis of the material, as we shall see in a moment. Here is my rendition of Moss’s description of the material: hupo, bu touming xiong huang se yu touming tuo hong se xiangjian (“quenao” hupo). 䏍䍨炻ᶵ德㖶晬湫刚冯德㖶愉䲭 刚䚠攻炷“晨儎” 䏍䍨炸. In this first mention of the term, I used quotation marks to signal that the term was novel. In the commentary, I dropped the quotation marks: Diao jiang qiaomiao de liyong le quenao hupo de banwen lai goucheng tu’an.晽⋈ⶏ⥁⛘⇑䓐Ḯ晨儎䏍䍨䘬㔹䲳Ἦ㥳ㆸ ⚾㟰. And in translating the final sentence quoted above from Moss, I simply referred to “sparrow-brain snuff bottles”: Ben hu shuyu yi xiao pi de bu dingxing diaosu xing de Qing zhong qi quenao biyanhu, shi zhi jie shuangxin yuemu. 㛔⢢Ⱄ㕤ᶨ⮷㈡䘬ᶵ⭂⼊晽⟹⿏䘬㶭ᷕ㛇晨儎滣䄁 ⢢炻夾ᷳ䘮䇥⽫〭䚖. It is unusually difficult to determine whether quenao hupo, let alone quenao biyanhu, will be understood by the Chinese reader. The latter term should have included the “amber,” I now recognize: quenao hupo biyanhu. But even with that correction, the term will probably seem strange to most readers. As far as I can determine, the sole place where sparrow brains is associated with amber is a work on snuff and snuff bottles by Zhao Zhiqian 嵁 ᷳ 嫁 (1829–1884), a calligrapher and painter of some importance. In his Yonglu xianjie˪≯䚏攺娘˫, 2 Zhao states that “yi zhong za song gen zhe, cheng quenao. ᶨ䧖暄㜦㟡侭炻䧙晨儎” (amber mixed with pine root is called “sparrow brains”). Many works on snuff bottles and the materials from which they are made allude to this passage, sometimes mentioning Zhao Zhiqian’s authorship, sometimes not; sometimes quoting him verbatim, sometimes paraphrasing him in modern Chinese. But while this gives the impression that sparrow-brains amber is a universally recognized and accepted term, one never finds it actually used by dealers, collectors, and museums. Google searches are one tool I use to determine whether a term is in actual use (or has contemporary meanings that muddy the waters, which, for example, discourages the use of yingshi 䠔䞛 to translate hardstone, as yingshi has already been co-opted to translate the Hard Rock Cafe name, perhaps because Fengkuang Yaogunyue Canting 䖳䉪㎾㺦㦪梸⺛, though it would correctly identify the international chain’s theme as rock and roll, not mineralogy, is way too long). One problem with searching for quenao in Google or any other large universe of texts is that actual sparrow brains Zhao Zhiqian, Yonglu xianjie˪≯䚏攺娘˫, Congshu jicheng ਒ᴨ䳶 edition, (rpt.; Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company ᷕ厗㚠⯨, 1985), 8.

2

4

There’s a Word for It—Or is There?

are used in Chinese medicine, and it is very difficult indeed to find any occurrences of quenao that are not in medical recipes; the relatively few occurrences related to amber are the sorts of quotations of Zhao Zhiqian mentioned above—and these quotations function only to give the appearance of knowledge, never in the context of any identification of an actual artifact as being made of sparrow-brains amber. The same is true of Duxiu 嬨 䥨 , a database of over two million monographs and journals that is often the first place I search, no matter what kind of information I am looking for. If one searches Duxiu for 晨儎 and 䏍䍨, not as a phrase but with a space between them, well over 250 hits are returned. However, one will be very, very discouraged: all of them except a very few are from medicinal texts. (Because both amber and the brains of sparrows had medicinal uses, the two terms will appear in hundreds of medical books, but not in the same sentence.) A web site I use very frequently to educate myself on descriptive terminology for art objects (let me admit here that most of my research throughout my career has been in Song poetry, not handicraft arts, so I am constantly learning new terms) is the Taiwan e-Learning & Digital Archives Program at http://catalog.digitalarchives.tw/dacs5/System/Hotkey /Hotkey.jsp. Unfortunately but tellingly, the term 晨儎 does not occur on this site. These digital archives do contain a snuff bottle made from this kind of amber, but the record simply says it is amber and describes the colour: hupo, bu touming hong he se. 䏍䍨炻ᶵ德㖶䲭墸刚. Only by looking at the picture at http://catalog.digitalarchives.tw/dacs5/System/ Exhibition/Detail.jsp?OID=1465022 does one realize that the variegated colour marks it as root amber (or sparrow-brains amber, if you will). How does one find this bottle if the caption does not include the key term? The archives have a stepped-search function, so one can enter 䏍䍨 first, then search for 䄁⢢ within those results. Of the nine amber snuff bottles returned by the search, the eighth and ninth are obviously of the “sparrow brains” type, both variegated in colour and opaque. In the case of the ninth bottle, a special term is used for the amber, but it is not “sparrow brains” or “root amber.” We shall turn to this other term next, but for now we can conclude that the experts at the National Palace Museum in Taiwan have no specific term for what Western collectors call “root amber”: amber is amber. The museum’s caption to the ninth bottle identifies the material as mila 囄冀 (beeswax), adding that this is (a kind of?) amber. One may hesitate to accept this identification, for mila and amber are treated as distinct stones. More seriously, if one goes through a series of objects identified as

Stuart H. Sargent

5

mila, it appears that the term has no stable referent or definition. In the digital archives in Taiwan, for example, a search for 囄冀 returns fortyeight objects of very different colours and degrees of translucency. If one eliminates the numerous rosary beads, one ends up with six objects carved from materials that vary widely in colour and translucency. A search for 囄埇, the same term written with a different character, produces similar results, with the addition of two snuff bottles that clearly imitate beeswax. The term amber does not figure in the captions for these objects. Conclusions: (1) mila is not properly used as a term for our sparrow-brains amber; and (2) the term mila itself is being misapplied in many, if not most, of the archives’ captions. The Hanyu da cidian˪㻊婆⣏娆℠˫tells us that mila 囄埇 is “of the same kind” as amber but is lighter in colour, which would be consistent with the two snuff bottles with the waxy yellow colour that are identified as mila in the digital archives. (Both belong to the National History Museum, whose captions are generally devoid of any detail in my experience, but in these two cases the identifications of the material have the virtue of being consistent with each other and convincing as descriptive of the material’s properties.) The Hanyu da cidian asserts that mila is also called jinpo 慹䍨, but the digital archives in Taiwan use this term for only two objects in the Palace Museum that are a translucent reddish brown and for a string of court necklace beads of similar colour that are described as jin huang se touming de hupo (ji jinpo) 慹湫刚德㖶 䘬䏍䍨炷⌛慹䍨炸(translucent golden yellow amber (i.e., jinpo)). Neither of these terms, then, is consistently associated with a particular kind of fossilized tree resin, nor have I found any source that even suggests that either one of them refers to the same material as “root amber” or “sparrow brains.” These attempts to find a term that is actually used in the contemporary Chinese-speaking world for root amber have failed. Unless I want to resort to the general term amber, I must turn to Zhao Zhiqian for guidance; he described the material that concerns us, and he said it had a name. I elect to use that term, quenao, and expand it to quenao hupo for clarity. The role of the translator in creating new words or reviving old ones is well recognized in the history of the development of modern Chinese. Some terms that came back into the language from Japanese brought new meanings that had been adopted by the Japanese to translate Western concepts, such as zongjiao ⬿㔁 or shehui 䣦㚫. In this case, I do not think one could say I am giving the term a new meaning; I am simply restoring a meaning it reportedly had in the nineteenth century. The only alternative, I

6

There’s a Word for It—Or is There?

fear, would be to write bu touming xiong huang se yu touming tuo hong se xiangjian de hupo or something like it every time one wanted to refer (in Chinese) specifically to this kind of amber. At the same time, of course, I am urging that other terms that have been used to refer to this type of fossilized tree resin in present “expert” discourse need to be replaced by “my” term: mila and jinpo need to be reserved for other specific materials. It is odd to be “laying down the law” for a language I have yet to achieve complete mastery in, even after nearly a half-century of effort. But I have not made up the term quenao; I have simply taken Zhao Zhiqian at his word that the term was used for this kind of amber in his century and have proposed that the term be used, therefore, where it is needed in our century.

TRANSLATING A CHINESE GARDEN: TEXTS AND IMAGES FROM THE KANGXI EMPEROR’S IMPERIAL POEMS ON THE MOUNTAIN ESTATE FOR ESCAPING THE SUMMER HEAT RICHARD E. STRASSBERG DEPARTMENT OF ASIAN LANGUAGES AND CULTURES UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES

Gardens are not normally perceived as incorporating acts of translation, yet some can be fruitfully understood in this way. In the past, some gardens in the West that were inaccurately called “Chinese,” “Japanese,” or “Asian” are nowadays recognized as adaptations where intercultural elements have been incorporated within the native idiom. Similarly, Western elements included in traditional Chinese gardens, as in some Lingnan-style gardens, may also be read as citations where the vocabulary of one stylistic language has been translated into another. Even today, when Chinese gardens are being built outside China with a high degree of authenticity in design, materials, and construction methods, acts of translation are still required to conform to modern building codes and usages, though these changes may not always be visible.1 An important garden in China that involved several acts of translation was the original Bishu Shanzhuang 性 㘹 Ⱉ 匲 (Mountain Estate for Escaping the Summer Heat) that was built by the Qing Dynasty emperor Kangxi ᓧ䅁 (r. 1661–1722). Its design was a transformation of the Han Chinese literati garden of Jiangnan into a new form of a northern, imperial palace-garden that was suitable for a ruler who wished to combine the best of Manchu and Chinese cultures. When Kangxi decided to represent this garden in poems and prose, he published a book in both Chinese and 1

See T. June Li, ed., Another World Lies Beyond: Creating Liu Fang Yuan, the Huntington’s Chinese Garden (San Marino, California: Huntington Library, 2009).

8

Translating a Chinese Garden

Manchu versions. The accompanying illustrations in this book were woodblock prints that were translations of a set of paintings or drawings by a court artist. These were rendered again by an Italian missionary into European-style copperplate engravings. Some sets of these engravings made their way to the West with the original Chinese text replaced by captions added in Italian or Latin. Subsequently, some of these engravings were reengraved and published with the captions translated into English. Such multiple acts of translation of the Mountain Estate are indicative of the distinctive, multi-cultural nature of Qing court culture as well as of the character of the extraordinary ruler who was critical in defining it. The transmission of these images abroad also reflects an earlier phase of globalization as China and the West began to interact more closely through trade and cultural exchanges.2 The Mountain Estate is located in modern Chengde ㈧⽟, Hebei 㱛⊿ some 150 miles north of Beijing in what was originally a largely uninhabited area bordering Mongolia and Manchuria. The site of the estate comprises a plateau surrounded by scenic mountains and hills with abundant water from a river, hot springs, clean air, and refreshing breezes in summer. It was originally the location of one of a series of lodges and campsites where Kangxi and his entourage stopped over on their way to the annual autumn hunt at Mulan 㛐嗕ġ one hundred miles further north. Kangxi began building the Mountain Estate in 1703, and from 1708 until the end of his life, he typically spent about half the year here, from April to October or early November, before returning to Beijing. Subsequently restored and expanded by his grandson, the Qianlong Ḧ昮 emperor (r. 1735–1796), it has suffered several periods of neglect and destruction over the centuries and has recently undergone a substantial reconstruction that is continuing. Today, it occupies about 1,400 acres and is a popular tourist destination that became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. In its original form under Kangxi, the Mountain Estate was intended to be a private retreat for the emperor in his later years. 3 It became his 2

See Richard E. Strassberg, “Yizuo Qingdai yuyuan zhi chuanbo: Kangxi Bishu Shanzhuang sanshiliu jing ji qi zai xifang de chuanbo lichen”˨ᶨ⹏㶭ẋ⽉剹ᷳ ⁛㑕烉⹟䅁性㘹Ⱉ匲ᶱ⋩ℕ㘗⍲℞⛐大㕡䘬⁛㑕㬟䦳˩“Transmitting a Qing Imperial Garden: Kangxi’s Thirty-Six Views of Bishu shanzhuang and Their Journey to the West,” in Fengjing yuanlin˪桐㘗⚺㜿˫(Landscape Architecture) 83 (June 2009): 93–103. 3 This essay considers the Mountain Estate as it was originally constructed and used by Kangxi in contrast to what it later became under Qianlong. Its subsequent existence has been studied in Phillipe Fôret, Mapping Chengde: The Qing

Richard E. Strassberg

9

favourite residence that reflected the new form of imperial identity that he defined for himself and subsequent Qing rulers, one which combined the attributes of a Manchu khan with those of a Chinese emperor. Here, he enjoyed a more reclusive lifestyle than in Beijing, away from the complex politics, daily court rituals, and unhealthful climate of the capital. While continuing to govern the empire through memorials that were daily forwarded to him and occasionally receiving visitors, he resided within the walls of the Mountain Estate accompanied only by a few selected members of his immense family and by palace eunuchs. Sometimes, a few of the European missionaries serving his court were also allowed to dwell here. But the thousands in his entourage, principally soldiers, were quartered in the town outside. Kangxi mostly pursued the active outdoor life esteemed by Manchus, especially archery and hunting, as well as engaged in the elegant, leisure pastimes of a Han literatus in his garden such as writing poetry and prose, practising calligraphy, enjoying the theatre, and studying a variety of intellectual subjects. In 1711, as Kangxi was approaching the milestone age of sixty (sui 㬚), the second phase of construction on the Mountain Estate was completed, and the emperor decided to produce a book of his poems and prose descriptions together with illustrations in order to commemorate both occasions. This became the Yuzhi Bishu Shanzhuang shi˪⽉墥性㘹Ⱉ匲 娑˫(Imperial Poems on the Mountain Estate for Escaping the Summer Heat, postface 1712). As part of his lifelong project of defining a distinctive, multi-cultural form of Qing imperial identity, Kangxi made use of many kinds of media to create portraits that deployed various personae. He especially utilized the Imperial Printing Office in the Hall of Military Glory (Wuyingdian 㬎劙㭧) in the Forbidden City to produce a vast array of publications. These included volumes of his poetry and prose, woodblock prints with his inscribed colophons, and other prestigious books with prefaces that he composed.4 The Imperial Poems was a unique project that followed the model of texts and images produced by Han Landscape Enterprise (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2000) and in the essays in James Millward, et al., eds., New Qing Imperial History: The Making of Inner Asian Empire at Qing Chengde (London: Routledge, 2004). For a recent arthistorical study of the depictions of the Mountain Estate under Kangxi, see Stephen Whiteman, Creating the Kangxi Landscape: Bishu Shanzhuang and the Mediation of Qing Imperial Identity (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 2011). 4 For a survey of Qing imperial publications, see Weng Lianxi 佩忋㹒, Qingdai neifu keshu tulu˪㶭ẋℏ⹄⇣㚠⚾抬˫(Illustrated Catalog of Qing Dynasty Imperial Printing) (Beijing: Beijing chubansheġ⊿Ṕ↢䇰䣦, 2004).

10

Translating a Chinese Garden

Chinese literati and artists to celebrate private gardens, and it may have been influenced as well by representations of European palaces such as Versailles that Kangxi had seen in Western books that he possessed. Scenes in gardens along with other landscapes had long been utilized by Chinese writers as a form of self-portraiture. Kangxi likewise selected thirty-six views (jing 㘗) in the Mountain Estate and composed a series of poems about them along with prose descriptions and a general preface. These were presented to a select group of readers as highly personal, visionary vignettes that both disclosed his private emotions as well as collectively projected his imperial identity. In the Imperial Poems, Kangxi first appears in a general preface, “Yuzhi Bishu Shanzhuang ji”˨⽉墥性㘹Ⱉ匲姀˩(“Imperial Record of the Mountain Estate for Escaping the Summer Heat,” 1711), as the dutiful Qing sovereign who has consolidated the empire and ushered in a period of peace and prosperity. He then shifts personae in the ensuing descriptions and poems, becoming a sensitive Chinese literatus wandering through various landscapes in an ideal, self-created microcosm. The arrangement of the sequence of thirty-six views traces a purely imaginary itinerary which no visitor could actually follow, for it would require innumerable zigzagging back and forth across this vast estate. Rather, the sequence is composed like the scenery in a painted landscape handscroll. The first few views provide an entrance into the Mountain Estate followed by a string of scenes that present a pattern of yinyang, contrasting themes climaxing in the middle view, no. 18, where the emperor climbs up a tower and beholds a panoramic, grand view of the world that is in a perfect state of dynamic equilibrium. The second part contains more contrasting scenes until the final ones, which are like a fading out as Kangxi appears alone, contemplating his own mortality. In the poems, Daoist themes of nurturing vitality in Nature and those evoking the Chinese ideal of reclusion are often voiced, but these tend to be combined with Confucian expressions of rededication to ruling the empire, thus forming hybridized sentiments in which duty and pleasure are combined. Among the innovations of the Chinese text was the addition of an extensive commentary by an editorial committee of six leading court scholar-officials. The commentary indicates that every word or phrase was derived from another great work of literature in the past, creating a vast hypertext that extends to virtually all the great books of Chinese literature. In fact, these annotations are mostly identical with the text of an important dictionary of two-character poetic phrases, Peiwen yunfu˪ἑ㔯枣⹄˫(A Treasury of Rhymes to Adorn Literature, 1704–1711), that Kangxi had commissioned during this period. This reveals how Kangxi’s poems,

Richard E. Strassberg

11

which were written in eleven different genres, were composed; they are all pastiches of other poems. It also configures the emperor as the supreme Han Chinese literatus by demonstrating his command of virtually the entire range of Chinese literature. He appears, in effect, as a master scholar who is teaching his readers how to assemble a correct poem, both technically and with reference to an orthodox canon of precursors. The Imperial Poems, like the construction of the Mountain Estate itself, was a labour of love whereby Kangxi sought to represent himself as he wished to be seen. He was involved in even the minutest details of producing this aspirational self-portrait, as evidenced by the many memorials that he exchanged with the officials of the Imperial Printing Office. 5 Four hundred copies were ordered printed, two hundred in the original Chinese and two hundred in a Manchu translation, each bound with a set of the woodblock illustrations. He ordered that these books be presented to members of the imperial family as well as to leading members of the Eight Banners, while some copies were also to be placed in the libraries of various other palaces. In all probability, a small number were also presented to select officials who were very close to him as well as to a few highly privileged visitors. As unprecedented as this book was in many ways, it was even more unique because of Kangxi’s decision to translate his text into Manchu. Why a Manchu translation? Although the Qing Dynasty published a number of books on more practical subjects in Manchu and in ChineseManchu bilingual editions, there had been no attempt to publish translations of Chinese poems by individuals into Manchu. 6 We can surmise that Kangxi decided on a Manchu version in order to appeal to at least two readerships. Firstly, although there were a number of Manchus who had become highly skilled in Chinese literature such as the chief editor of the Imperial Poems, Kuixu ㍮ 㔀 (ca. 1674–1717), many important Manchu members of the Eight Banners were still not well 5

For Chinese translations of some of the memorials in Manchu between Kangxi and the Imperial Printing Office concerning the Imperial Poems, see Guan Xiaolian 斄⬅⹱ and Qu Liusheng ⯰ℕ䓇, eds., Kangxi chao manwen zhupi zouzhe quanyi ˪ ⹟ 䅁 㛅 㺧 㔯 㛙 ㈡ ⣷ 㐢 ℐ 嬗 ˫ (Complete Translations of the Manchu Memorials with Imperial Comments during the Kangxi Era) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe ᷕ⚳䣦㚫䥹⬠↢䇰䣦ĭġ1996). 6 The only exception before Kangxi’s Imperial Poems was a Manchu translation of the Shijing˪娑䴻˫(Book of Songs) issued during his father’s reign in 1654 along with translations of other Confucian classics. Later, Manchu translations of the Shijing were reissued in 1733 and 1768 under Yongzheng 晵㬋 (r. 1662–1735) and Qianlong.

12

Translating a Chinese Garden

educated in Chinese, and some, not at all. 7 They would not have understood the annotations or the literary allusions underlying his poems. Kangxi would have found it far more useful to represent himself to them as a Manchu khan, for a chauvinistic tendency persisted among some bannermen that was opposed to empowering the Han Chinese scholarofficial class or promoting their culture at the expense of the traditional Manchu virtues. A second readership may well have been Manchu women. Manchu was written with an alphabet and was much easier to learn than the thousands of Chinese characters. The language itself was simpler and more direct in its significations. Furthermore, Manchu women were freer than Han Chinese women in many respects, and there does not seem to have been the same kind of constraints against women’s literacy. In fact, Kangxi’s first teacher of Manchu as a child was Mistress Sumala 喯湣┯ (d. 1702), an influential palace woman.8 Empress Dowager Xiaohui ⬅よ (1641–1717), whom Kangxi revered and honoured as his mother, was still very much alive and accompanied the emperor to the Mountain Estate every year. Kangxi also had some sixty wives and some twenty daughters, and there were probably many other high-ranking Manchu women who would have found the Manchu translation more accessible. The Imperial Poems was first written in Chinese and then translated into Manchu. The translation was done by Manchu translators employed by the Imperial Printing Office and then proofread and corrected by Kangxi himself. 9 The Manchu language as it existed during the Qing Dynasty did not have a long history of written literature, for the Manchu script only fully developed from the Mongolian script by around 1632, barely a decade before the conquest of China. Instead, the poetic impulse was mostly expressed in an oral culture of folk songs and ballads.10 After settling in China, those Manchus who wished to compose more sophisticated poetry did so by utilizing the superior resources of the Chinese literary tradition rather than by developing a distinctly Manchu 7

Mark C. Elliott, The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), 293. 8 Bai Xinliang 䘥㕘列, et al., eds., Kangxi huangdi quanzhuan˪⹟䅁䘯ⷅℐ⁛˫ġ (A Complete Biography of Emperor Kangxi) (Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe ⬠剹↢ 䇰䣦, 1994), 346. 9 See Kangxi’s instructions to the Manchu translators in the Wuyingdian in Guan and Qu, Kangxi chao˪⹟䅁㛅˫, no. 2154, p. 863. 10 On the development and changing status of the Manchu language during the Qing, see Mark C. Elliott, Manchu Way (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2001), 290–304; also Pamela Kyle Crossley, The Manchus (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997), 33–39.

Richard E. Strassberg

13

form. Unlike the Chinese text, the Manchu version does not include the extensive annotations to the poems by the editors. Thus, the Manchu translation stands in relation to the original Chinese very much as an English translation does. In both cases, neither Manchu nor English vocabulary can convey the allusiveness of the original Chinese words, nor can they capture their tones, rhymes, and the rhythmic patterns of the poetic lines. What is conveyed, therefore, is basically a rendering of the semantic meaning, which may suffice for the preface and prose descriptions but unavoidably impacts important aspects of the poems. Generally speaking, the Manchu translation is quite faithful to the semantic meaning of the Chinese text. Recently, two American scholars produced English renditions of the Chinese and Manchu versions of Kangxi’s preface to the Imperial Poems that are so close to one another that they teasingly invited readers to guess which was written first, the Chinese or the Manchu. Following is the beginning of the Chinese text and two excerpts from these translations: 慹Ⱉ䘤傰䓐炻㘾㹄↮㱱炻暚⡹㷇㱻炻䞛㼕曺曬炻⠫⺋勱偍炻䃉 䓘㞗 ᷳ⭛ˤ桐㶭⢷䇥炻⭄Ṣ婧梲ᷳ≇ˤ冒⣑⛘ᷳ䓇ㆸ炻 㬠忈⊾ᷳ⑩⼁Ƀ (1) From Gold Mountain a vein in the earth broke through, and from the hot water was formed a spring. The clouds of steam forever filling the valley, the stones and pools turn green. Grass grows luxuriously everywhere, and there is no fear that harm will come to one’s fields or home. The wind is pure, and the summers are cool, easily suiting and nourishing people. All things born or possible on heaven and earth fall into the category of creation … (2) Gold Mountain sends forth dragon veins, warm rapids divide the springs, clouds and pools are clear and deep. There are rocky ponds and dense green vegetation, broad rivers and fertile grasslands, yet nothing harms the fields and cottages. The wind is clear, summer bracing; it is an ideal place for people to be nourished. Arising from heaven and earth’s inborn qualities, it is the sort of place where people can commune with nature …

The first rendition is by Mark Elliott based on the Manchu translation and the second, by Scott Lowe, is based on the original Chinese.11

11

Mark C. Elliott and Scott Lowe, trans., “Preface to the Thirty-Six Views of Bishu Shanzhuang: Record of the Mountain Villa to Escape the Heat,” in J. Millward, New Qing Imperial History, 167–68.

14

Translating a Chinese Garden

It seems that Kangxi’s intention in ordering the Manchu translation was more pragmatic than artistic; it did not result in the creation of new genres of poetry in Manchu based on Chinese models. In 1741, Qianlong republished Kangxi’s Imperial Poems and included thirty-six poems of his own that were written in response. In 1745, he published his own book, Yuanmingyuan sishi jing shi˪⚻㖶⚺⚃⋩㘗娑˫(Poems on Forty Views of the Garden of Perfect Clarity) about his residence outside Beijing.12 Although Qianlong followed the exact model of Kangxi’s book, in neither case did he order a Manchu translation despite his active promotion of a campaign to reverse assimilation among bannermen by reviving Manchu literature and culture. By the mid-eighteenth century, practically all educated Manchus were sufficiently literate in Chinese to appreciate the poems in the original, and both of Qianlong’s books were intended for a much wider readership. Presently, I am involved in rendering the complete text of Kangxi’s Imperial Poems into English, so the story of its translation into other languages continues. The other aspect of the Imperial Poems that involves translation concerns the illustrations. The original images were painted or drawn in outline by a major court artist Shen Yu 㰰╣ (d. ca. 1727) and engraved under the supervision of two of Kangxi’s most skilful artisans, Zhu Gui 㛙 ⛕ and Mei Yufeng 㠭塽沛 (both fl. ca. 1696–1713).13 This involved the transposition of a vocabulary of calligraphic brushstrokes and ink tonalities into the single-toned, graphic language of woodblock engraving. The style of the thirty-six scenes employ a mode of illustration that had become fairly generic in finely printed books from the late Ming Dynasty onward. It incorporated formulaic elements from the manners of the great painting masters of the Song and Yuan Dynasties. These had become codified by later literati artists such as Dong Qichang 吋℞㖴 (1555–1636) and his followers in the so-called Orthodox School of the Four Wangs, 12

Qianlong reused the original woodblocks for the illustrations in the 1741 reprint and also had editorial committees similarly annotate his own poems for both of the later books. Continuity was probably provided by Zhang Tingyu ⻝⺟䌱 (1672– 1755), an important official who served on the editorial committees for all three publications. However, annotating imperial poems was limited to these three books, and did not appear in other imperial publications, even in Kangxi’s other published collections. 13 A set of the woodblock prints was published in Bishu Shanzhuang sanshiliu jing ˪ 䚯 ᳁ ኡ 匲 й ॱ ‫ ޝ‬Ჟ ˫ (The Thirty-Six Views of the Mountain Estate for Escaping the Summer Heat) (Beijing: Renmin meishu chubanshe Ṣ㮹伶埻↢䇰䣦, 1984Ī. Various other reprints have appeared over the years.

Richard E. Strassberg

15

which was favoured by Kangxi and patronized by the Qing court. The representation of the buildings and other man-made structures, though, does not employ the expressive xieyi ⮓シ style of literati painting but rather, the documentary style of jiehua 䓴䔓 architectural painting. Nor do these illustrations engage in a dialogical relationship with the emperor’s poems, unlike some paintings of gardens that respond to the owner’s lyrical vision or that are later commented upon by others in colophons, creating a conversation among a cultural community. In representing the Mountain Estate, the hierarchical distinction between sovereign and court artist was too great, and the latter was not expected to express the emperor’s subjectivity. Thus, the woodblock illustrations mainly function to present the reader with supplementary information about the actual scenes while the emotionalized visions of the thirty-six views depend entirely on Kangxi’s text. Not only do these largely static images lack animating elements such as the birds, fish, and clouds mentioned throughout the poems; they do not even attempt to represent the emperor’s precise location and perspective. Instead, they convey more distant, frontal, panoramic landscapes that are appropriately impersonal. According to the Italian missionary Matteo Ripa 楔⚳岊 (1682–1746), who was serving as a court artist, Kangxi had for some time desired to have someone at his court capable of producing European copperplate engravings, for he wished to print a monumental map of the Qing Empire that his Jesuit experts were in the process of creating, using Western surveying techniques. The emperor was well aware of the advantages of this printing technology from the European books in his collection. However, it was not yet available in China as neither the necessary materials nor the expertise existed within his domain. Ripa recorded that in June 1711, Kangxi asked some of his missionary-experts if anyone knew how to engrave copperplate images and that only he bravely volunteered to try. Ripa was actually no more than an amateur artist who had been accepted into Kangxi’s service because of his skill in painting Western-style portraits in oil, which Kangxi admired. However, he had taught himself by copying other paintings, which would prove useful in translating the illustrations. Ripa readily admitted that he had only briefly observed the process of etching with acquafortis once in Rome before leaving for China but had never actually practised it. However, Kangxi immediately set him to work. After much trial and error, Ripa was able to find substitutes for European acid and ink from native materials as well as manufacture a rudimentary printing press. During the next two years, he managed to produce some seventy sets of his version of the illustrations of

16

Translating a Chinese Garden

the thirty-six views, which represent the first European-style copperplate engravings in China. He also trained two students in the technique.14 Ripa’s translation of the idiom of woodblock illustration into the medium of copperplate engraving not only represented a striking technical advance at the time but also was an artistic statement that went beyond what Shen Yu, Zhu Gui, and Mei Yufeng attempted. 15 Ripa was not constrained by traditional Chinese artistic decorum and was encouraged to produce a version of the images that was distinctly European. In each case, he began by using a stylus to faithfully trace the calligraphic lines of the woodblock images onto the copper plates, which were covered with a layer of pine soot. This resulted in a more uniform line which nevertheless preserved the original composition and most of its individual elements as well as the exact form and measurements of the architectural structures. Ripa’s version altered the woodblock images in a number of ways. While preserving the outer shape and proportions of the major trees, he reinterpreted these in a European manner by articulating the individual leaves and outlining the branches and trunks. Areas that had been left empty in the woodblocks such as the skies and lakes were filled in with clouds, shadows, and in one case, a blazing sun. Birds and fish were depicted as were lotus blossoms. The forms of many of the rocks and mountains were rendered more sculpturally, resembling alpine scenery, and in some cases, small buildings were added in the distance vaguely resembling a combination of Chinese and Western architecture. He added 14 Ripa described his engraving of the illustrations in various entries in his journal as well as in the abridged English translation that later appeared. See Matteo Ripa, Giornale (1705–1724), vol. 2, ed. Michele Fatica (Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1996), 38ff and Ripa, Memoirs of Father Ripa, during Thirteen Years Residence at the Court of Peking in the Service of the Emperor of China; with an Account of the Foundation of the College for the Education of Young Chinese at Naples, trans. Fortunato Prandi (London: J. Murray, 1844; reprint, New York: Wiley & Putnam, 1846), 78, 84ff. 15 An edition of the Imperial Poems with Ripa’s engravings was reproduced in facsimile as Kangxi et al., Tongban yuzhi Bishu Shanzhuang sanshiliu jing shitu ˪戭㜧⽉墥性㘹Ⱉ匲ᶱ⋩ℕ㘗娑⚾˫(Engraved Copperplate Edition of Imperial Poems on the Thirty-Six Views at the Mountain Estate for Escaping the Summer Heat with Illustrations) (Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe ⬠剹↢䇰䣦, 2002). This was probably intended for Kangxi as the illustrations are bound with the Chinese text written out by a court calligrapher without the annotations. Another set of the engravings alone can be accessed online by searching the collection database at the British Museum website at: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search under “Matteo Ripa” as well as under “Thirty-Six Views of the Imperial Summer Palace at Jehol,” ID# 1955,0212,0.1.1.

Richard E. Strassberg

17

additional details to the façades of the villas and pavilions. While the widths of the engravings were identical to that of the woodblocks, the height of the copperplates was slightly greater, enabling Ripa to further develop the sky or the foreground areas. However, the most striking alteration was the use of cross-hatching and other kinds of chiaroscuro shading to create tonal contrasts. This resulted in more dramatic atmospheres. The heightened emotionalism sometimes reflected the attitudes expressed in Kangxi’s poems; and, in some cases, Ripa even went beyond the poems to endow the scenes with qualities that the poet never quite intended. Compared to the woodblock prints, the engravings are less consistent in style. The Chinese engravers were all experienced professionals working in an established idiom, while Ripa’s efforts were basically experimental. Both he and his students were engaged in a learning process, and the students did not possess his artistic background. The engravings thus roughly fall into three groups: one group is fully realized with various European-style alterations that only Ripa himself could have imagined. A middle group contains fewer additions and may have been the result of more collaboration, while a third group is extremely faithful to the woodblock prints with few changes; these might have been executed by his students themselves. Despite the liberties that Ripa took, or, perhaps, because of them, Kangxi was quite pleased with the results and was quoted as praising them as “hen hao ⼰⤥” (very good). 16 He was so concerned about maintaining exclusive control over this new technique that he made Ripa and the students promise not to teach its secrets to anyone else. Immediately after the engravings were completed in April 1714, Kangxi ordered Ripa to begin engraving the Jesuit map of the Qing Empire, which he completed about three years later. Kangxi never intended that his book or the illustrations circulate among a wide audience in China nor is there evidence that he wished to send any copies abroad. However, Ripa began to send sets of his engravings to European friends and correspondents as soon as they were printed. When he returned to Europe in 1724, he brought back a number of sets, and these are probably the ones now found in various collections in both Europe and North America. On his way back to Naples, where he 16

The entire set of thirty-six engravings was not completed until April 1714. Ripa recorded Kangxi’s enthusiastic reaction in both his diary and in a letter to a fellow priest in Rome. The emperor ordered a number of sets printed and distributed to his sons, grandsons, and other noblemen. See Ripa, Giornale, 2: 136; also “Letter to Father Bussi in Rome, 26 August 1714” in the Print Collection, New York Public Library.

18

Translating a Chinese Garden

later founded a college for training young Chinese men as Catholic priests, 17 he stopped in London, where he presented King George I (r. 1714–1727) with a copy of the Jesuit map of the Qing Empire. It is probable that he also made presents of sets of the engravings of the Mountain Estate, although their influence among British garden enthusiasts at that time remains a matter of debate among scholars.18 Ripa certainly presented a number of sets to others in Europe over the following two decades. Some of these bear Ripa’s renditions into Italian or Latin of Kangxi’s names for the views. A few contain even more valuable descriptions written in his own hand and based on his observations while residing at the Mountain Estate on a number of occasions. Ripa’s comments represent yet another translation of the Mountain Estate. All the sets that he sent or brought to Europe were of the engravings alone, without Kangxi’s poetic text. It is doubtful if anyone in Europe at that time would have known the Chinese language well enough to understand such literature. Even Ripa, who spent thirteen years at the Qing court and often served Kangxi as an interpreter and translator, was probably not sufficiently educated in literary Chinese to properly comprehend the deeper significance of the titles and the poems. Nor did he realize the importance of the original sequence; each set now abroad is numbered and/or arranged in a different order. Thus, when he translated the titles and inscribed his own text, he was fundamentally reframing the perception of the Mountain Estate in the minds of European readers, who would have had a very different understanding of it as an imperial garden. 17

This became the famous Collegio dei Cinesi, which was later nationalized and incorporated into the present-day Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale.” For studies of Ripa and the Collegio, see Michele Fatica, Sedi e Palazzi dell’Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale” (1729–2005) (Seats and Palaces of Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale” [1729–2005]) (Naples: Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale,” 2005) and Fatica, ed., Matteo Ripa e il Collegio dei Cinesi di Napoli (1682–1869) (Naples: Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale,” 2006). 18 In the past, some scholars have debated when Ripa’s engravings arrived in England and whether they had any influence on the early development of the socalled “Chinese Garden.” See Basil Gray, “Lord Burlington and Father Ripa’s Chinese Engravings,” The British Museum Quarterly XXII, nos. 1–3 (1960): 40– 43 and a response in Patrick Conner, “China and the Landscape Garden: Reports, Engravings and Misconceptions,” Art History 2, no. 4 (December 1979): 429–40. However, based on a recent dating of ca. 1725 for the binding of the set in the Morgan Library in New York, it appears more that Ripa did distribute one or more sets of his engravings in England when he passed through. Still, no record of their reception at this time has yet come to light.

Richard E. Strassberg

19

Kangxi’s complex self-portraiture expressed in his text was not conveyed, either. Instead, the visual evidence of the scenes together with Ripa’s observations focused attention on how the various villas were used as part of the emperor’s lifestyle. Since the late sixteenth century, European readers had become increasingly interested in trying to understand China through the character of its emperors. In the age of monarchies, nations were often judged through the personalities and habits of their rulers, and these were generally conveyed through idealized portraits, depictions of palaces, as well as anecdotal information about their personalities and behaviour. In addition to general books about China, a few Chinese illustrated books were reproduced that extolled Confucius and virtuous rulers in Chinese history. These helped to promote the ideal of a philosopher-king during the Enlightenment as a means of reforming monarchial absolutism and curbing royal extravagance. A flattering biography of Kangxi began to circulate in the late seventeenth century that presented him as a model ruler. 19 This was further supported by many positive reports from the Jesuit court-missionaries who were anxious to build support for their efforts to convert China. When Europeans viewed Ripa’s engravings of the Mountain Estate, many probably compared what seemed to be small, rustic pavilions situated in a natural landscape with the artifice and grandiosity of Versailles and other baroque palaces and estates. Since these were presented as individual views, it would not have been apparent how large the Mountain Estate was nor would the readers have realized how expensive it was to build and maintain. Ripa’s comments indicating where the emperor resided and worked presented a simpler, more modest lifestyle that Europeans could only wish for in their own sovereigns. At the same time, in contrast to the cultural allusions to Chinese literature and paintings and the self-representation in Kangxi’s text, Ripa’s comments present the Mountain Estate as a retreat where the emperor goes to relax and enjoy his favourite pleasures. Many of the villas and pavilions are identified by him as pleasure houses. In accordance with Chinese decorum, Kangxi nowhere mentioned his many wives. But Ripa was well aware of the European audience’s interest in the Chinese emperor’s private life, and he indicated on a number of plates where Kangxi’s wives dwelled, or where he would relax with them on frequent excursions. Thus, he 19

An effusive biography of Kangxi by the Jesuit missionary Joachim Bouvet (Bai Jin 䘥 㗱 , 1656–1730), Histoire de l’Empereur de la Chine (Cang-Hy), first appeared in 1697. Dedicated to Louis XIV, it was quickly translated into two languages and reprinted a number of times.

20

Translating a Chinese Garden

catered to viewers’ curiosity about the emperor’s harem by providing a voyeuristic tour of a delightful fantasy world. For example, view no. 26, “Yunfan yuefang 暚ⶮ㚰凓” (Sailing with Clouds on a Boat to the Moon), is a lakeside pavilion shaped like a boat that Kangxi in his poem imagines is taking him on a euphoric journey to the Daoist paradise island of Penglai 咔厲. Ripa’s translation of the title and his description is much more earth-bound: Vela simile ad’una nubbe, e barchetta simile alla luna. =casini di recreaz.e di due appartamento in Cina rari, essendo quasi tutte le Casi in piano. In questo Casino l’Imperadore andava spesse volte a spasso colle sue donne a prender fresco ne gran calori. (“Sail Similar to a Cloud, and a Little Boat Similar to the Moon.” Little pleasure houses of two floors, quite rare in China, where most houses are on one floor. At this pleasure house the emperor often went for walks with his women to enjoy the fresh air during hot weather.)20

The last version of Ripa’s images before the modern period occurred in the mid-eighteenth century, by which time they had become known in England. In 1751, the writer, Oxford professor, and garden theorist, Joseph Spence (1699–1768) listed sixteen principles of garden design including “To follow Nature.” He mentioned having recently seen thirty-six prints of the Chinese emperor’s garden and praised their design qualities.21 He also mentioned that new versions of eighteen of these engravings were being prepared for a forthcoming publication in London. This was The Emperor’s Palace at Pekin, and His Principal Gardens..., which appeared in 1753.22 The method of reproduction was virtually the same that Ripa 20 The caption is from the set of Ripa’s engravings in the Bibliotheca Nazionale di Napoli, where it is no. 30. See Ripa, Giornale, 2: 204 for a reproduction and a partial, modern Italian version of the caption. The author thanks Professor Paola Demattè and Professor Bianca Maria Rinaldi for the English translation. 21 Joseph Spence (penname of Sir Harry Beaumont), Observations, Anecdotes and Characters of Books and Men Collected from Conversation, edį James M. Osborn (Reprint, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), 2: 647; 2 vols. 22 The complete title is: The Emperor of China’s Palace at Pekin, and His Principal Gardens, as well in Tartary, as at Pekin, Gehol and the Adjacent Countries; with the Temples, Pleasure-Houses, Artificial Mountains, Rocks, Lakes, etc. as Disposed in Different Parts of Those Royal Gardens. It was printed and sold by a group of London commercial publishers who also issued prints and other books about China. This book was later reprinted in London from the original plates in the early nineteenth century. For a description of the copy in the Getty Research Institute, see Marcia Reed and Paola Demattè, eds., China on Paper:

Richard E. Strassberg

21

employed with regard to the Chinese originals. That is, the composition, architecture, and landscape were traced exactly from Ripa’s original etchings and maintain the same scale. But a comparison readily indicates the technical sophistication of the professional European engravers as well as the superior materials at their disposal. The uneven quality of Ripa’s set has been eliminated by a more consistent style in the London images, resulting in scenes that project a pervasive, bucolic atmosphere of harmony and pleasure. In almost all cases, the sky and water areas have been filled in and further elaborated while the shapes of the shadows in the water are more realistic. The strong and sometimes dramatic contrasts in Ripa’s images were muted by subtler tonal gradations. The lines are also more controlled and delicate, descriptive rather than calligraphic, with some land surfaces completely textured. In some cases, the composition has been slightly improved by altering the shapes and leaves of the trees. While Ripa’s amateur, home-made images have a graphic appeal to the modern eye, eighteenth-century viewers, even in China, would certainly have regarded the refined English version as a considerable improvement. Most striking is how the English engravers, catering to the chinoiserie imagination, Europeanized Ripa’s engravings even further. They presented an orientalist dream of China as a delightful, exotic world of leisure and enjoyment. A variety of human figures, as well as boats, birds, animals, and additional architectural elements were added to animate the scenes. Many of these elements were copied from earlier published illustrations of China. Most of them are improbable and some are quite fantastic. Numerous boats are out of scale to each other and to the architecture and landscape, making the scenes appear far more extensive and impressive. Activities showing people swimming, sailing, picnicking, farming, and fishing would also not have occurred in these locations. The clothing worn by the figures is inaccurate, and the additional buildings placed in the distance appear more Western than Chinese. Most preposterous is a swimmer grasping hold of a dragon-like water serpent as well as huge Chinese phoenixes soaring in the air. However, the choice of views from among the thirty-six favoured those with pavilions, villas, and bridges located among irregularly shaped streams and lakes, which would have accorded with contemporary English interest in a more natural garden. The London engravers also included at the bottom of each plate even more awkward, English translations of Ripa’s Italian renderings of the European and Chinese Works from the Late Sixteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century (Los Angeles: The Getty Research Institute, 2007), 122–23, 206–7. The entire book may be viewed online at: http://www.getty.edu/research/tools /digital_collections, ID# 92-B26685.

22

Translating a Chinese Garden

Chinese names of the views as well as some of his brief comments. For example, the poetic name of the bridge in view no. 34, “Changhong yinlian 攟 嘡 梚 䶜 ” (A Long Rainbow Sips White Silk), which Ripa rendered as “Arco baleno che succia l’acqua” (Rainbow that sucks the water), became in the English plate no. 12, “The Lightning Arch, that Sucks in the Water.” Since Ripa did not include his signature in his engravings, it is quite possible that few people in Europe who viewed these images knew of his role until Professor Paul Pelliot’s (1878–1945) research in the 1920s.23 Yet, The Emperor of China’s Palace must have had a much wider circulation among a broader reading public than Ripa’s original engravings, which were mostly passed down in private collections. It is quite possible, then, that the authentic information about the Mountain Estate that was transmitted by Ripa was most influential in England in the form of these more fantastic versions, which only appeared after he had died.24 The multiple renditions of Kangxi’s Mountain Estate are a reminder that gardens are highly transitory objects. Especially in China, they are not only designed to facilitate perceptions of time and change; they also undergo alterations in addition to periodic renovations and reconstructions because of their use of natural materials. Most Chinese gardens from the past have disappeared entirely. Whether they are perceived as scenes of personal experience, as idealized designs, or as spaces for social performance, it is only through their representations that they achieve coherent and stabilized identities. The Mountain Estate may be said to have begun as the self-portrait of a Qing emperor, but through a series of translations, it has now entered a new phase of its existence within an increasingly globalized garden culture.

23

See Paul Pelliot, “La Gravure sur Cuivre en Chine au XVIIIe Siècle,” Byblis no. 2 (1923): 103–8; also George H. Loehr, “Missionary-Artists at the Manchu Court,” Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society 34 (1962–1963): 51–67. 24 Similarly, Ripa’s invaluable observations in his journals only became available to the reading public in the nineteenth century with the publications of the Italian and English versions. See Matteo Ripa, Storia della Fondazione della Congregazione e del Collegio De’ Cinesi, 3 vols. (Naples: Manfredi, 1832. Reprint, Naples: Instituto Universitario Orientale, Collana “Matteo Ripa,” 1983) and Ripa, Memoirs, (1846), which was based on the Storia.

“MULTIFLORATE SPLENDOUR”: A COMMENTARY ON THREE ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF SCENE 10 OF THE PEONY PAVILION* JOHN C. Y. WANG DEPARTMENT OF EAST ASIAN LANGUAGES AND CULTURES STANFORD UNIVERSITY

The Peony Pavilion (Mudan ting˪䈉ᷡṕ˫), written in 1598 by Tang Xianzu 㸗栗䣾 (1550–1616), is generally considered one of the greatest chuanqi ⁛⣯ plays ever written in China, and Scene 10 (“Jingmeng”˨樂 ⣊˩or “The Interrupted Dream”) from the play has been one of the most frequently performed zhezixi ㉀⫸㇚ (“broken-off plays” or separately performed scenes extracted from longer plays) in Kunju 㖮∯ (Kun opera), so much so indeed that for many it threatens to overshadow the entire play. The scene constitutes a crucial episode in the play as it sets the stage for an incredible story about how the heroine Du Liniang 㜄渿⧀ pines for love until she dies and how through the power of love she is able to return to life again. Written in enchantingly beautiful but often dense and elusive lyrics as arias, it depicts the subtle psychological changes a young girl yearning for love undergoes upon viewing a brilliantly flowering spring scene in a deserted garden (first half of the scene) and then dreaming of having sex with a young scholar there (second half of the scene). As such, it presents some formidable challenges to anyone who tries to render it into another language. In what follows, I will compare translations of all the arias in the scene by three well-known translators—H. C. Chang, Cyril Birch, and Stephen Owen 1 —and see how successful they each are in * This essay has appeared in an expanded form in the Journal of Oriental Studies 46, no. 1 (June 2013): 1–33, and a Chinese translation of the essay has appeared in Xu Yongming ⼸㯠㖶ġ and Tian Yuan Tanġ 昛朅㰭, eds., Yingyu shijie de Tang

24

“Multiflorate Splendour”

meeting the challenges. In the process, I will also have the opportunity to share my own reading of this famous scene. In making the comparisons, my primary concern will be of faithfulness to the original text in terms of both language and content.2 Even though the idea of faithfulness has been contested in the field of translation studies, I believe, nevertheless, that a more accurate rendering of the language and ideas in the original must be the foundation for any good translation, literary translation not excepted. Maybe this is why among his famous three principles of translation—xin ᾉ (faithfulness), da 忼 (comprehensibility), and ya 晭 (elegance)—Yan Fu ♜⽑ (1854–1921), an influential translator who played a major role in bringing Western thought into China, put xin ahead of the other two. Moreover, as we know, the three translators themselves are also well-known scholars. And as we are going to see soon, it is quite clear that, among other things, they all strive to stay as close to the original as possible. Finally, my procedure of operation will be as follows. Each aria in the original, accompanied by the translations, will be given first; they will be followed by my commentary. Unless noted otherwise, all arias are sung by Liniang. The translations are arranged in chronological order with Chang (1973) first, followed by Birch (1980 and 2002) and Owen (1996). Since arias constitute the core of a chuanqi play, prose dialogue and intoned verses in the scene will not be focused on. The text of the arias in the translations will be given in italics. For easier distinction, however, dialogue and stage directions, as well as the so-called “padding” or extrametrical words (chenzi 夗⫿), in the Chinese original will be set in smaller font sizes. In the translations, spoken parts in the middle of an aria and stage directions—also set in different fonts for distinction—will Xianzu yanjiu lunzhu xuanyi ˪ 劙 婆 ᶾ 䓴 䘬 㸗 栗 䣾 䞼 䨞 婾 叿 怠 嬗 ˫ —An Anthology of Critical Studies on Tang Xianzu in Western Scholarship (Hangzhou: Zhejiang guji chubanshe 㴁㰇⎌䯵↢䇰䣦, 2013), 252–274. 1 H. C. Chang, Chinese Literature: Popular Fiction and Drama (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1973), 293–302; Cyril Birch, trans., The Peony Pavilion (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980; 2000, 2nd ed.), 42–53; Stephen Owen, ed. & trans., An Anthology of Chinese Literature (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996), 883–91. 2 By “the original text” I mean: Tang Xianzu 㸗栗䣾, Mudan ting˪䈉ᷡṕ˫(The Peony Pavilion), annotated by Xu Shuofang ⼸㚼㕡 and Yang Xiaomei 㣲䪹㠭 (Beijing: Remin wenxue chubanshe Ṣ㮹㔯⬠↢䇰䣦, 2009 ed.), 53–61. Their edition first appeared in 1963 and has been reissued a few times. The 2009 edition contains some minor changes. There is reason to believe that all three translators based their translations on one of the editions of this text.

John C. Y. Wang

25

further be marked off by brackets and parentheses respectively. The names of Liniang, her maid Chunxiang 㗍楁, and the male lead Liu Mengmei 㞛 ⣊ 㠭 have been rendered differently by the translators. To avoid confusion, I have reverted to their original names in romanization in both the quotations from the translations and my commentary. [I] 烪丆㰈忲烬⣊⚆浗♨炻Ḫ䄆⸜⃱念ˤṢ䩳⮷⹕㶙昊ˤ炷層炸䁟䚉㰱䄁炻 ㉳㭀三䶂炻⿩Ṳ㗍斄ねỤ⍣⸜烎 I dreamt of the oriole’s reverberating song/And springtide’s rioting outburst/In a small secluded courtyard where I stood./ (Chunxiang) The incense sticks are burnt out;/A loose thread hangs from the embroidery frame./Will this year’s spring awaken the feelings of last year’s? (Chang) From dream returning, orioles coil their song/through all the brilliant riot of the new season/to listener in tiny leaf-locked court./ (Chunxiang) Burnt to ashes the aloes wood/cast aside the broidering thread,/no longer able as in past years/to quiet stirrings of the spring’s passions. (Birch) Back from dreams in orioles’ warbling,/a tumult of bright spring weather/everywhere, and here I stand/in the heart of this small garden./ (Chunxiang) The stick of aloes burns away, its smoke is gone,/thrown down,/the last embroidery threads—/why does this spring touch my feelings/so much more than springtime past? (Owen)

A couple of scenes ago, in Scene 7 (“The Schoolroom”), Liniang by chance learnt from Chunxiang that there is a large garden attached to their official residence. Piqued by curiosity and prompted by a vague sense of amorous longing from reading the first stanza of the first song in the Shijing˪娑䴻˫(The Book of Songs) (“Guanguan cry the ospreys/On the islet in the river./So delicate the virtuous maiden,/A fit mate for our Prince.”),3 she decided to pay a visit to the garden. In this first aria, we see her waking up from a dream to find herself surrounded by a bright riotous spring scene. This is how both Birch and Owen take the first two lines. Chang, however, understands them differently: He makes the scene depicted in these lines appear rather IN a dream by Liniang before she wakes up. Maybe this is because he was not sure how to handle the third

3

Adapted by Birch (p. 24) from James Legge, “The She King,” The Chinese Classics, IV (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1960), 1.

26

“Multiflorate Splendour”

line whose subject “ren Ṣ” (person) he takes to be “I,” that is, Liniang herself—“In a small secluded courtyard where I stood.” How could the daughter of a high official walk into the courtyard immediately upon awakening without tidying up a little bit first? By making what happens in the first two lines appear in a dream he would thus be able to sidestep the problem. If this is indeed what may have prompted Chang to translate the two lines the way he did, he is perhaps over-translating because right after the aria, in a line declaimed by Chunxiang we read, in Chang’s own translation, “Throwing your springtime curls all to one side/And leaning over the balustrade.” This would indicate that Liniang did not walk down to the courtyard, but rather is viewing the scene from her balcony. The word “ren” at the beginning of line 3, therefore, should perhaps not be understood to refer to Liniang herself, but rather to someone else, such as a servant, who happens to stand there. If so, Birch’s “listener” would seem to be a more appropriate rendering as it does not specify who the person is. If “ren” does not refer to Liniang herself, then Owen’s translation is questionable, too, as he also renders it as “I.” Similarly, his rendering of “xiao ting shen yuan ⮷⹕㶙昊” as “in the heart of this small garden” seems inadequate since it fails to convey the sense of seclusion which is suggested by the word “shen” in the original and is therefore translated as “secluded” by Chang. I am not sure if Birch’s rendering of “shen” as “leaf-locked” would convey the idea of seclusion either. Rather, it seems to reinforce the smallness of the courtyard where leaves from trees and plants grow so close that they seem to interlock. The last line in this aria sung by Chunxiang is another place where we see some difference in understanding between Chang and the other two translators. Chang’s translation—“Will this year’s spring awaken the feelings of last year’s?”—seems to me much closer to the original, while the other two have added emphasis (perhaps not suggested in the original) that this year the experience of spring will be more intense with Birch’s “no longer able as in past years/to quiet stirrings of the spring’s passions” and Owen’s “why does this spring touch my feelings/so much more than springtimes past?” The emphasis could be justified if the line were sung by Liniang, instead of Chunxiang, as a way to anticipate what is going to happen later: The strong “stirrings of the spring’s passions” (Birch) would lead directly to Liniang’s dream of a tryst with a young man.

John C. Y. Wang

27

[II] 烪㬍㬍⪴烬塲㘜䴚⏡Ἦ攺⹕昊炻㎾㻦㗍⤪䶂ˤ ⋲㗴ˣ㔜剙懧ˤ㰺㎋ 厙剙炻‟Ṣ⋲朊炻後徿䘬⼑暚ῷˤ炷埴ṳ炸㬍楁敐⾶ὧ㈲ℐ幓䎦炰 Ensnaring gossamer threads wafted across an untrodden court—/Spring itself is afloat!/A long while I pause/To arrange my hair ornaments;/Who would have known?—the mirror/Slyly peeping at my face,/Throws all my curls again into confusion./ (walking) Yet can I conceal myself when I walk? (Chang) The spring a rippling thread/of gossamer gleaming sinuous in the sun/borne idly across the court./Pausing to straighten/the flower heads of hair ornaments,/perplexed to find that my mirror/stealing its half-glance at my hair/has thrown these “gleaming clouds”/into alarmed disarray./ (She takes a few steps) Walking here in my chamber/how should I dare let others see my form! (Birch) Sunlit floss comes windborne coiling/into my quiet yard,/swaying and bobbing, spring is like thread./I stop a moment to straighten/the flowered pins in my hair/to suddenly find that the mirror plunders/ half my face, prodding/my sparkling tresses to one side./(Walks away) Though I pace my chambers, do I dare let my body be seen entire? (Owen)

Here we see Liniang making her toilet to get ready to walk out to see the garden. Commenting on the first two lines in this aria, Li Yu 㛶㺩 (1611–1680), a playwright, theatre critic, and fiction writer of the early Qing period, wrote: The first sentence [in the second aria] of “The Interrupted Dream” reads: “Sunlit floss comes windborne coiling/into my quiet yard,/swaying and bobbing, spring is like thread.” (Owen) The author uses a windborne sunlit floss to tease out the thread of love. This is just the first sentence of the aria, yet the author already puts so much meaning into it. This is painstaking effort indeed. However, among the one hundred listeners of The Peony Pavilion, will there be even one or two who could understand what the author is getting at here? … Similarly, in other lines such as “A long while I pause/To arrange my hair ornaments;/Who would have known?—the mirror/Slyly peeping at my face,/Throws all my curls again all into confusion” (Chang) … we can see that every word is painstakingly designed, but every word is lacking in brightness and clarity. Fine lines such as these can only be appreciated as literary writing, but not as chuanqi drama. (˪樂⣊˫椾⎍ḹ烉ˬ塲㘜䴚⏡Ἦ攺⹕昊炻㎾㻦㗍⤪䶂ˤ˭ẍ 忲䴚ᶨ䷟炻徿崟ね䴚炻䘤䪗ᶨ婆炻⌛屣⤪姙㶙⽫炻⎗媪㄀㽡䴻䆇䞋ˤ

28

“Multiflorate Splendour” 䃞倥㫴˪䈉ᷡṕ˫侭炻䘦Ṣᷳᷕ㚱ᶨḴṢ妋↢㬌シ⏎烎ɃɃ℞检 ˬ ⋲㗴炻㔜剙懧炻㰺㎋厙剙炻‟Ṣ⋲朊˭ɃɃ䫱婆炻⫿⫿ᾙ屣䴻 䆇炻⫿⫿䘮㫈㖶䇥ˤ㬌䫱⥁婆炻㬊⎗ἄ㔯⫿奨炻ᶵ⼿ἄ⁛⣯奨ˤ)4

Li Yu here is of course criticizing Tang Xianzu for writing a play for reading, rather than for acting. Ironically, however, he has also quite perceptively revealed the subtlety and richness of meaning hidden in these lines. Of the three translations of the first two lines in the aria, Owen’s perhaps comes closest to the original in terms of accuracy and completeness. Yet in reading it, could we ever sense the kind of hidden significance pointed out by Li Yu if we do not realize that the word “qing 㘜” (sunlit) in the original actually contains a pun for the word “love” (also pronounced qing ね)? In situations like this, perhaps the only way for a translator to get out of the predicament is by providing an explanatory note. Once the pun is pointed out, readers will begin to see more clearly the hidden connection between a wafted sunlit gossamer on the one hand and spring and love on the other. They will be able to appreciate more fully the author’s ingeniously subtle way of saying that spring is about to awaken in Liniang a secret yearning for love. Somewhat regrettably, none of the three translators chose to provide a note here. The final line in this aria presents a different kind of challenge to a translator. Syntactically it may appear straightforward, and yet it could be subject to different interpretations depending on our understanding of Liniang’s personality. Both Birch’s translation (“Walking here in my chamber/how should I dare let others see my form!”) and Owen’s (“Though I pace my chambers, do I dare/let my body be seen entire?”) suggest a shy and demure young lady who wonders if it would be appropriate for her to show herself in the open by walking out of her boudoir. This is of course the usual reading of the line. Another possible reading of this line, I believe, would be just the opposite: “How would I be able to let others see my form if I just keep pacing here in my own chamber!” That is to say, she is almost eager to emerge from her chamber to openly show off her complete beauty, as Chang’s translation (“Yet can I conceal myself when I walk?”) seems to suggest—although rather obliquely. I myself rather like this second reading as I think it may actually be closer to what Tang Xianzu intended here. We could imagine that after the make-up, Liniang walked around a little bit first, indeed 4

Li Yu 㛶㺩, Xianqing ouji˪改ね„姀˫, annotated by Jiang Jurong 㰇ⶐ㥖 and Lu Shourong 䚏⢥㥖 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe ᶲ㴟⎌䯵↢䇰䣦, 2000 ed.), 34.

John C. Y. Wang

29

wondering if it would be proper for her to show herself to the outside world. Quickly, however, she stopped hesitating and almost defiantly made the pronouncement above. While in the play in general Liniang may appear as a modest and well-bred young lady from a prominent family, at places, however, she is also shown as a rebellious and daring girl who is willing to pursue her goal in life at all costs. And as we are going to see in the next aria, there is no question that she is quite conscious of her dazzling beauty. 5 [III] 烪愱㈞㬠烬Ἀ忻侈䓇䓇↢句䘬墁堓⃺勄炻导㘞㘞剙䯒ℓ⮞⠓炻⎗䞍ㆹⷠ ᶨ䓇⃺ッ⤥㗗⣑䃞ˤ〘ᶱ㗍⤥嗽䃉Ṣ夳ˤᶵ昬旚㰱欂句晩沍樂╏炻⇯⾽ 䘬但剙攱㚰剙ォ栓ˤ You would say/The emerald skirt shows up the madder crimson gown,/ matched with a glittering gem-studded floral hairpin./Know, then:/Love of the beautiful was ingrained in me from birth./But the glories of spring are here hidden from man;/Only the birds flutter at the sight of beauty/And the flowers in their pride grieve at their own eclipse. (Chang) See now how vivid shows my madder skirt,/how brilliant gleam these combs all set with gems/—you see, it has been/always in my nature to love fine things./And yet, this bloom of springtime no eye has seen./What if my beauty should amaze the birds/and out of shame for the comparison/ “cause fish to sink, wild geese to fall to earth,/petals to close, the moon to hide her face”/while all the flowers tremble? (Birch)

5

I was delighted to read in an article in a recent issue of Tang Xianzu yanjiu tongxun˪㸗栗䣾䞼䨞忂妲˫(no.1, 2011: 68) by Cai Mengzhen 哉⬇䍵, entitled “Chongdu ‘Mudan ting’ de jige menjing”˨慵嬨˪䈉ᷡṕ˫䘬⸦ᾳ攨⼹Lj, that Mei Lanfang 㠭嗕剛 (1894–1961) would indeed like to read this line the same way as I proposed here. Following the usual interpretation of this line, however, Cai disagrees with Mei’s reading. Nevertheless, we must not forget that, even though known as a great singer and performer of Peking opera, Mei was also a devoted Kun opera singer and performer. His first performance at the tender age of eleven sui 㬚 was in a Kun opera role. The last film he made, very near the end of his long and distinguished career as an opera singer, was of Scene 10 from The Peony Pavilion. In fact, he was so fond of this scene that he collaborated with the famed Shanghai Kun opera singer Yu Zhenfei ᾆ㋗梃 in countless performances of this scene over almost three decades. Mei Lanfang’s lecture and demonstration on how to sing and perform the scene can be found at: http://www.douban.com/group/topic/2291477. His reading of this line appears on p. 4.

30

“Multiflorate Splendour” Note the skirt’s madder red,/set off by vivid azure,/the opulent glitter of flowered pins/richly inlaid with gems—/you can tell/my lifelong love of such,/comes from my nature—/spring’s finest touch/is seen by no man ever./No matter, if, at the sight,/the fish dive deep/or wild geese come down/or birds squawk out in alarm,/I only fear to shame the flowers,/to make the moon hide away,/and blossoms will quiver from sorrow. (Owen)

This aria is sung by Liniang in response to Chunxiang’s comment: “How beautifully you are dressed and adorned today!” (Birch) It expresses unambiguously Liniang’s complete confidence in her unsurpassed beauty and the regret that her good looks are unnoticed by people because of her cloistered state of existence. To paraphrase her: My beauty is so dazzling that I am afraid it would “amaze the birds and out of shame for the comparison/ ‘cause fish to sink, wild geese to fall to earth,/ petals to close, the moon to hide her face’/ while all the flowers tremble.” (Birch) And yet, regrettably, “this bloom of springtime no eye has seen.” (Birch) She is thus determined to walk out of her secluded chamber to partake in “the glories of spring.” (Chang) What we see here is not a modest shy girl, but rather a proud determined young lady ready to venture forth to find happiness for herself. Both Chang and Owen may have mistranslated the phrase “cui sheng sheng 侈 䓇 䓇 ” in the first line as “emerald” and “vivid azure” respectively. According to Professor Xu Shuofang ⼸㚼㕡 (1923–2007) and his colleague in their authoritative annotated edition of the play, the phrase is used to “speak in extreme terms of [its] colourfulness and brightness” (“jiyan caise xianyan” 㤝妨⼑刚歖导),6 which is followed by Birch in his translation “how vivid.” Chang left out the images of the fish, the wild geese, and the moon in his rendering of the last two lines in the aria. Maybe he thought that since these lines contain two clichéd sayings long used to describe a beautiful girl, their overall meaning would be clear enough even without the extra images, which may make the translation appear cumbersome. In general, however, all three translations are adequate in getting across the general purport of the original.

6

Tang, Mudan ting, annotated by Xu and Yang, 58.

John C. Y. Wang

31

[IV] 烪䘪伭堵烬ᶵ⇘⚺㜿炻⾶䞍㗍刚⤪姙炰⍇Ἦ⦡䳓⪋䲭攳念炻Ụ忁凔悥 Ẁ冯 㕟ḽ柡❋ˤ列彘伶㘗⣰ỽ⣑炻岆⽫㦪ḳ婘⭞昊炰⿩凔㘗农炻ㆹ侩䇢␴⤞⤞ ℵᶵ㍸崟ˤ 炷⎰炸 㛅梃㙖⌟炻暚曆侈幺烊暐䴚桐䇯炻䄁㲊䔓凡——拎⯷ Ṣ⽺䚳䘬忁枞⃱岌炰炷層炸㗗剙悥㓦Ḯ炻恋䈉ᷡ怬㖑ˤ [Away from gardens and groves, how should one learn of spring’s delights? Indeed I see—] Gay purple and exquisite red abloom everywhere,/But all abandoned to a dried-up well and crumbled walls./That glorious moments amidst this splendid scene/should enshroud despair!/In whose courtyard do hearts still rejoice in the present?/ [Such a fine view, though never mentioned by my father and mother.] (sings chorus) Unfurled with daybreak till wrapped again by dusk,/Golden cloudlets over a jade-green pavilion;/Streaks of rain borne by a stray breeze;/A painted boat on the rippling waves:/The cloistered maiden holds cheap sweet springtime. [Chunxiang: All the other flowers are out, only the peony is not yet.] (Chang) [Without visiting this garden, how could I ever have realized this splendor of spring!] See how deepest purple, brightest scarlet/open their beauty only to dry well crumbling./ “Bright the morn, lovely the scene,” /listless and lost the heart/—where is the garden “gay with joyous cries”?/ [My mother and father have never spoken of any such exquisite spot as this.] (Liniang, Chunxiang) Streaking the dawn, close-curled at dusk,/rosy clouds frame emerald pavilion;/fine threads of rain, petals borne on breeze,/gilded pleasure boat in waves of mist:/glories of spring but little treasured/by screen-secluded maid. [Chunxiang: All the flowers have come into bloom now, but it’s still too early for the peony.] (Birch) [If I hadn’t come to the garden, how could I have ever known how beautiful spring was.] Coy lavenders, fetching reds/bloom everywhere, here/all left to this broken well/and tumbled wall. Fair season,/fine scene— overwhelming/weather. Where/and in whose garden shall we find/pleasure and the heart’s delight?/ [My father and mother have never mentioned such scenery.] (Together) Drifting in at dawn, at twilight/roll away/clouds and colored wisps/through azure balustrades,/streaming rain, petals in wind,/a painted boat in misty waves,/the girl behind her brocade screen/has long ignored/such splendor of spring. [Chunxiang: All the flowers have bloomed, but it’s still early for the peony.] (Owen)

This is of course an extremely well-known aria. Performed on stage, with its beautifully imagistic poetic lines, melodious soft music, and graceful choreography by mistress and maid in perfect coordination, it represents the art of Kun opera at its finest. It describes the excitement and

32

“Multiflorate Splendour”

sheer delight Liniang experiences upon seeing a gorgeous spring scene in a large garden with flowers of all colours in full bloom. “If I hadn’t come to the garden, how could I ever have known how beautiful spring was,” (Owen) she cannot help murmuring to herself. Almost immediately, however, she notices the abandoned state the garden is in. “Gay purple and exquisite red abloom everywhere,/But all abandoned to a dried-up well and crumbled walls.” (Chang) The dramatic fluctuation between elation one moment and dispiritedness the next can be seen again and again through not only the rest of this aria, but also in Arias V and VI, until the mood of dispiritedness becomes dominant in Aria VII, at the end of which she falls asleep and dreams of a rendezvous with a young scholar. Being a sensitive girl with a keen intelligence, she obviously senses a similarity between what she sees in the garden and her own situation in life. Just as “such splendor of spring” (Owen) is unnoticed in a deserted garden, her own youth and beauty have been neglected and left to waste away by themselves. As we are going to see soon, she becomes so preoccupied with her own sorry plight that she cuts short their tour of the garden even though her maid Chunxiang would obviously prefer to linger a little longer. All three translators have done an adequate job in their respective renderings although Birch left out the expression “tuiyuan 柡❋” in line 2, which is translated as “crumbled walls” by Chang and “tumbled wall” by Owen. The omission is regrettable as it is there to add to the desolateness of the garden. Moreover, his rendering of the word “ren Ṣ” as “maid” in the last line may mislead as readers may take it to mean a “maid servant” such as Chunxiang, but of course a maid servant can hardly be described as “screen-secluded.” Chang’s “maiden” and Owen’s “girl” are preferable. Owen’s translation of “naihe tian ⣰ỽ⣑” as “overwhelming weather” is somewhat mystifying unless we make a special effort to take it to mean a certain sense of oppressiveness brought on by some kind of insufferable weather—with the weather here referring figuratively to what is within Liniang herself at this point in the garden. By comparison, Chang’s simple “despair” and Birch’s “listless and lost the heart” are much clearer. The biggest challenge to the translators turns out to be the four characters that appear very near the beginning of the first line—“chazi yanhong ⦡䳓⪋䲭,” which at first glance may appear simple enough. The different ways they are rendered by the translators would indicate, however, that they are anything but simple. Birch’s “deepest purple, brightest scarlet” may be closest in meaning to the original, but strangely it also sounds kind of plain and “unpoetic” with the awkward use of two adjectives—deep and bright—in their superlative form. Owen’s translation,

John C. Y. Wang

33

“coy lavenders, fetching reds,” on the other hand, is lively and interesting. Yet, it may be liable to criticism by the purists for having committed a “pathetic fallacy” with its two loaded adjectives “coy” and “fetching,” when the original means simply, again according to Professor Xu Shuofang, “the aspect of the bright and gay colours of the flowers” (“huase xianyan mao 剙刚歖导尴”).7 That is to say, the four words in the original are just meant to be the description of an actual albeit beautiful scene, as suggested in Birch’s translation. By contrast, Chang’s “gay purple and exquisite red” seems to have struck a happy middle ground. You will already have guessed that the initial phrase of my title refers precisely to these four words, and those familiar with Professor David Hawkes’s translation of the Honglou meng˪䲭㦻⣊˫ (The Story of the Stone) will perhaps have noticed that the English rendering there is taken directly from his translation. In Chapter 23 of the novel, we recall, Daiyu 溃䌱 is deeply moved when she chances to overhear lines from Scene 10 of The Peony Pavilion being sung by some young actresses living in the Jia 屰 family troupe—lines that include the first line from this aria in which these four words appear. Professor Hawkes’s translation, “multiflorate splendour,” seems to me at once neat and apt in conveying what is suggested in the original while leaving much to the imagination of the reader.8 [V] 烪⤥⥸⥸烬 念 曺Ⱉ┤䲭Ḯ㜄泹炻匤嗤⢾䄁䴚愱庇ˤ 㗍楁␝ 炻䈉ᷡ晾 ⤥炻Ṿ㗍㬠⾶⌈䘬⃰炰炷層炸ㆸ⮵⃺浗䅽␝ˤ炷⎰炸改ↅ䚬炻䓇䓇䅽婆㖶⤪ 侎炻♎♎浗㫴㹄䘬⚻ˤ炷㖎炸⍣伟ˤ炷層炸忁⚺⫸⥼㗗奨ᷳᶵ嵛ḇˤ炷㖎炸㍸Ṿ ⾶䘬炰

All over the green hills are azaleas bespattered with blood;/Behind the rose arbor, whiffs of smoke curl dreamily./[Chunxiang,]/ The peonies are well enough,/But they tarry even when spring is departing./ [Chunxiang: Oh, the orioles and swallows in their pairs!] (Sing in chorus) Enraptured we listen/To the swallow’s unbroken, sharp-edged chatter/And the soothing trill of the oriole’s roundelay. [Liniang: Let us go. Chunxiang: One can never see enough of this garden. Liniang: Why speak about it again?] (Chang)

7

Tang, Mudan ting, annotated by Xu and Yang, 58. David Hawkes, trans., The Story of the Stone, vol. 1 (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1973), 465–66.

8

34

“Multiflorate Splendour” The Green hillside/bleeds with the cuckoo’s tears of azalea,/shreds of mist lazy as wine fumes thread the sweetbriar./However fine the peony,/how can she rank as queen/coming to bloom when spring has said farewell! [Chunxiang: See them pairing, orioles and swallows!] (Liniang, Chunxiang) Idle gaze resting/there where the voice of swallow shears the air/and liquid flows the trill of oriole. [Liniang: We must go now. Chunxiang: Really one would never weary of enjoying this garden. Liniang: Say no more!] (Birch) Throughout green hills the nightjar cries/red tears of blood; and out beyond/the blackberry, the threads/of mist coil drunkenly./ [Oh, Chunxiang!]/ And though the peony be fair,/how can it maintain its sway/when spring is leaving?/[Chunxiang: The orioles and swallows are mating!] (Together) Idly I stare/where twittering swallows crisply speak/words cut clear,/and from warbling orioles comes/a bright and liquid melody. [Liniang: Let’s go. Chunxiang: I really can’t get enough of this garden. Liniang: Let it go!] (Owen)

That Liniang is comparing what she sees in the garden with her own plight in life can be seen even more clearly in this aria. “However fine the peony,/how can she rank as queen/coming to bloom when spring has said farewell!” (Birch) Liniang here is obviously comparing herself to the peony: Even though it is considered the queen of flowers, all becomes meaningless if spring has departed. The happy twittering and warbling of the mating swallows and orioles only make her even more depressed. She decides to end their tour of the garden despite some reluctance on the part of Chunxiang. Again, in general all three translators have done an adequate job in their various renderings. Birch left out the direct address “Chunxiang e” just before line 3 (“However fine the peony”). However, it would be clearer to keep it as the other two translators have done, since what follows in the aria is Liniang’s response to Chunxiang’s comment made at the end of the previous aria: “All the flowers have come into bloom now, but it’s still too early for the peony.” (Birch) Likewise, without mentioning the word “azalea” anywhere, Owen’s translation of the first line (“Throughout green hills the nightjar cries/red tears of blood”) may appear extraordinary to readers unfamiliar with the legend about Wangdi 㛃ⷅ, an ancient ruler of the Shu ( 嚨 ) Kingdom in modern-day Sichuan, who abdicated his throne, died, and metamorphosed into a cuckoo bird that day and night cried until its tears turned to blood and dyed the azalea flowers red. Again, in situations like this, a footnote would go a long way toward clarifying things. Chang and Birch do each provide a note here. However, Chang omits Wangdi entirely and focuses only on the connection between

John C. Y. Wang

35

the cuckoo’s crying and the redness of the azalea, while Birch, on the other hand, does not make clear the connection between the cuckoo’s tears and the azalea except that they both are red in colour. Finally, Owen’s use of “nightjar” rather than “cuckoo” for the word “dujuan 㜄泹” (which, of course, is the name for both the bird and the flower) is debatable and seems unnecessarily obscure. Overall, Birch’s translation here seems to read more smoothly than the other two. [VI] 烪昼⯦烬奨ᷳᶵ嵛䓙Ṿ並炻ὧ岆念Ḯ⋩Ḵṕ⎘㗗㜱䃞ˤ⇘ᶵ⤪冰䚉⚆⭞ 改忶怋ˤ We can never see enough of it—so let longing be!/Though we visit all twelve pavilions, it were still in vain;/Better to return content and while away our time within. (Chang) Unwearying joy—how should we break its spell/Even by visits each in turn/to the Twelve Towers of Fairyland?/Far better now, as first elation passes,/to find back in our chamber/some pastime for idle hours. (Birch) When you cannot get enough, you are ensnared,/then to enjoy each/of the twelve pavilions is wasted./When the first impulse wears away,/it is better by far/to turn back home and idly pass the day. (Owen)

This is a short aria in which Liniang tries to explain her reason for abruptly calling off the visit to the garden, but the explanation is only halfhearted at best. The true reason, as she reveals in a soliloquy after this aria when she is left all alone in her inner chamber, is rather: While viewing a glorious spring scene in a deserted garden, she is so overtaken by an overwhelming feeling of her youth and beauty being wasted that it becomes too much for her. “Heaven,” she declares, “now I begin to realize how disturbing the spring’s splendor can truly be.” (Birch) She recalls how some young lovers in old literature secretly met and then became husband and wife, and then continues: “I was born into a family of officials and I have grown up in an illustrious household. Yet I have already reached fifteen, the age to have one’s hair pinned up, without having found a worthy mate. I’m wasting the spring of my life, whose years flash past me. (Weeps) What a pity that this complexion so like a flower is destined to end up like a leaf.” (Owen) Of the three translations, Owen’s is the clearest in its almost word-for-word rendering of the original.

36

“Multiflorate Splendour”

With this aria and the long soliloquy that follows, the first part of this scene, usually known as “Youyuan”˨忲⚺˩ (“Strolling in the Garden”), has ended. What follows is “The Interrupted Dream” proper. Sometimes they are performed separately as two zhezexi. When they are performed together as one zhezixi, they are more commonly known as “Youyuan jingmeng”˨忲⚺樂⣊˩(“Strolling in the Garden and the Interrupted Dream”). [VII] 烪Ⱉ✉伲烬㰺Ḫ墉㗍ね暋怋炻槨⛘墉㆟Ṣ⸥⿐ˤ⇯䁢ᾢ䓇⮷⪳⧇炻㍨ ⎵攨ᶨἳˣᶨἳ墉䤆ẁ䛟ˤ䓂列䶋炻㈲曺㗍㉳䘬怈ˤᾢ䘬䜉ね婘夳烎⇯ 䳊 ⚈⽒朎僮炻 ゛ ⸥⣊婘怲炻 ␴ 㗍⃱ 㘿 㳩廱烎怟⺞炻 忁 堟㆟恋嗽妨烎㶡 䃶炻㻹㭀䓇炻昌⓷⣑炰 Taken unawares, I could not resist spring’s infectious warmth;/All too suddenly I am filled with longing and resentment./Only because of my passable good looks/And the requirement of a husband of the same family standing,/Handsome, too, to make a blissful pair,/A perfect match!—/The prospect has left my prettiest years behind./Who is there to watch over me asleep on my couch?/Primly, then, I conceal my blushes,/Indulging in secret dreams (by whose side?)/Playing hide and seek with springtime,/And so drag on/(For how might I express my true feelings?— )/In torment/This wretched existence/(Except in reproaching heaven!) (Chang) From turbulent heart these springtime thoughts of love/will not be banished/—O with what suddenness/comes this secret discontent!/I was a pretty child, and so/of equal eminence must the family be/truly immortals, no less/to receive me in marriage./But for what grand alliance/is this springtime of my youth/so cast away?/What eyes may light upon my sleeping form?/My only course this coy delaying/but in secret dreams/by whose side do I lie?/Shadowed against spring’s glory I twist and turn./Lingering/where to reveal my true desires!/Suffering/this wasting,/where but to Heaven shall my lament be made! (Birch) I cannot purge this riot of passion,/I am suddenly plunged into secret despair./Young and winsome, for me must be chosen/a match from a house of equal station,/equal station, kin to the very gods./Yet what blessed union would squander/the green spring of my youthful years?/Who sees my slumbering passion?/So must I remain retiring and demure./But secret dreams will lead me where? —/rolled on unseen with the light of spring./As I waver here/to whom can I tell heart’s secret care?/I burn away,/my life is cursed, unless/I demand that Heaven tell me why. (Owen)

John C. Y. Wang

37

Although this aria marks the beginning of the second part of Scene 10, in terms of content it is really a continuation of the soliloquy seen above. All by herself now, without Chunxiang around, Liniang seems to have lost all her inhibitions and begins to open up her heart for the audience to see. Her resentment at a cloistered state of existence and frustration that her youth and beauty are wasting away while waiting for a proper marriage cannot be more clearly expressed. Right after this emotional outburst, she falls asleep. Psychologically, she is now conditioned to enter into an unforgettable erotic dream that is to change her life forever. Let us take a closer look at the three translations. Except for the questionable translation of the first three words “moluanli 㰺Ḫ墉” (“in an emotional turmoil”—“xinxu hen luan ⽫䵺⼰Ḫ”—according to Professor Xu Shuofang) 9 in the first line as “taken unawares,” overall Chang’s is probably the most faithful to the original. Birch’s is fine, too, with only a couple of blemishes: He did not really translate the important phrase “huairen ㆟Ṣ” (literally, thinking of someone and translated as “longing” by Chang) in the second line, and he may have misread line 10 “He chunguang an liuzhuan ␴ 㗍 ⃱ 㘿 㳩 廱 ” when he translated it as “Shadowed against spring’s glory I twist and turn.” A more appropriate rendering might be: “Like springtime, my youthful years are silently slipping away.” This is the reading suggested by Mei Lanfang in his comments on how to sing and perform this aria.10 By comparison, Owen’s is not as strong. His rendering of the first two lines as “I cannot purge this riot of passion,/I am suddenly plunged into secret despair” reads more like paraphrases than translations. And like Birch he left the phrase “huairen” in the second line untranslated. This is rather contrary to his normally laudable habit of trying to stay close to the language of the original as far as possible. Moreover, his translation of “xiao chanjuan ⮷⪳⧇” in line 3 (“Ze wei an sheng xiao chanjuan ⇯䁢 ᾢ 䓇 ⮷ ⪳ ⧇ ”) as “young and winsome” is problematic. Although chanjuan basically is an adjective, syntactically it would be awkward to have a monosyllabic word (xiao) and a disyllabic word (chanjuan) together in one phrase as two parallel adjectives unless we add the connective er 侴 after xiao to turn it into a sort of pseudo disyllabic word (xiaoer ⮷侴), thus making up a four-syllable phrase “xiao er chanjuan ⮷ 侴⪳⧇.” But this might violate the rules of prosody. As it is, however, it would be best to simply consider “chanjuan” as a noun, meaning literally 9

Tang, Mudan ting, annotated by Xu and Yang, 60. See http://www.douban.com/group/topic/2291477, p. 14.

10

38

“Multiflorate Splendour”

“a beautiful entity” such as the moon or a beautiful girl. “Xiao chanjuan” together then would mean pretty much what is suggested in Chang’s translation “my passable good looks.” Another possible reading, one that takes more into account the “sheng 䓇” that precedes the three characters, would be “pretty since childhood” (“cong xiao meili ⽆ ⮷ 伶 渿 ”) as suggested by Mei Lanfang. 11 Birch’s translation “I was a pretty child” may be based on this reading. Finally, Owen’s translation of line 7 “An de shuiqing shei jian ᾢ 䘬 䜉 ね 婘 夳 烎 ” as “Who sees my slumbering passion?” is interesting, but it is different from the usual reading of this line, which is followed by Chang (“Who is there to watch over me asleep on my couch?”) and Birch (“What eyes may light upon my sleeping form?”). [VIII] 烪Ⱉ㟫䲭烬 ⇯䁢Ἀ ⤪剙伶䛟炻Ụ㯜㳩⸜炻㗗䫼⃺改⮳念ˤ ⛐ ⸥敐冒 ㄸˤ ⮷⥸炻␴Ἀ恋䫼⃺嫃娙⍣ˤ 炷㖎ἄ⏓䪹ᶵ埴炸炷䓇ἄ䈥堋ṳ炸炷㖎Ỷ⓷炸 恋怲 ⍣烎炷䓇炸廱忶忁刵喍㪬⇵炻䵲月叿㷾Ⱉ䞛怲ˤ炷㖎Ỷ⓷炸䥨ㇵ炻⍣⾶䘬烎炷䓇 Ỷ柕炸␴Ἀ㈲柀㈋㜦炻堋ⷞ⮔炻堾䦵⃺㎦叿䈁⃺劓ḇ炻⇯⼭Ἀ⽵侸㹓⬀ᶨ 㗴䛈ˤ炷㖎ἄ但炸炷䓇⇵㉙炸炷㖎㍐ṳ炸炷⎰炸㗗恋嗽㚦䚠夳炻䚠䚳⃤䃞炻㖑暋 忻忁⤥嗽䚠忊䃉ᶨ妨烎炷䓇⻟㉙㖎ᶳ炸 (Liu Mengmei) Because of your flower-like beauty/In the first flush of fleeting youth,/I sought you in each nook and corner/But find you dejected in your chamber. [Mistress, let us go over there and talk. (Liniang smiles but remains where she was; Liu pulls at her sleeve) Liniang (in a whisper): Where?] We shall go past that enclosed bed of peonies/And stop close by the Taihu rockery. [Liniang (whispers): Scholar, what mean you to do? Liu (also in a whisper): there I will] Undo your collar,/Loosen your girdle, — /You hiding behind your sleeve/Shall bite it for pain/And so submit to love’s brief, sweet embrace. (Liniang bashfully hides her face; Liu holds her in his arms; Liniang pushes him away) (Both sing chorus) Where could we have met?/We gaze and wonder;/What, so luckily chanced upon and yet so dumb? (Liu carries Liniang off forcibly) (Chang) (Liu Mengmei) With the flowering of your beauty/as the river of years rolls past,/everywhere I have searched for you/pining secluded in your chamber. [Lady, come with me just over there where we can talk. (She gives him a shy smile, but refuses to move. He tries to draw her by the sleeve) Liniang (in a low voice): Where do you mean?] There, just beyond this railing peony lined/against the mound of weathered Taihu rocks. [Liniang (in a 11

See http://www.douban.com/group/topic/2291477, p. 13.

John C. Y. Wang

39

low voice): But, sir, what do you mean to do? Liu (also in a low voice):] Open the fastening at your neck/loose the girdle at your waist,/while you/screening your eyes with your sleeve,/white teeth clenched on the fabric as if against pain,/bear with me patiently a while/then drift into gentle slumber. (Liniang turns away, blushing, Liu advances to take her in his arms, but she resists him) (Liu, Liniang) Somewhere at some past time you and I met./Now we behold each other in solemn awe/but do not say/in this lovely place we should meet and speak no word. (Liu exits, carrying off Liniang by force) (Birch) (Liu Mengmei) Because of your flowerlike beauty,/and your youth flowing past like water,/I’ve looked for you everywhere./And you were here,/selfpitying in your lonely chamber. [Let’s go somewhere and talk. (Liniang smiles but won’t go. Liu pulls her by her clothes.) Liniang (softly): Where are we going?] Pass round by the railing/where peonies stand,/close by the great Taihu rock. [Liniang (softly): But what are we going there for?] To unfasten your collar’s buttons/and loosen the sash of your gown./You will hold your sleeves pressed/tight against teeth,/then after you bear my attentions,/enjoy a moment’s sleep. (Liniang is embarrassed. Liu puts his arms around her and she pushes him away.) (Together) Where have we met before/that we look at each other unsure?/How at a wonderful moment like this/could we come together without a word? (Liu forces his arms around Liniang and exeunt.) (Owen)

Liu Mengmei, the male lead, now appears in Liniang’s dream even though the two have never met before. The first two lines sung by him in this aria are among the best known ones in the play. As Professor Lu Eting 映古⹕ (1925–2003) observed in a commentary on this scene, “These are famous lines. The entire Peony Pavilion is about these eight characters whose flavour can never be exhaustively savoured.” (Zhe shi mingju, quanben Mudan ting xiede jiushi zhe xunwei bujin de bage zi. 忁㗗⎵⎍炻 ℐ㛔˪䈉ᷡṕ˫⮓䘬⯙㗗忁⮳␛ᶵ䚉䘬ℓᾳ⫿ˤ) 12 As seen in our discussion of Aria IV, these lines are also among the ones overheard by Lin Daiyu in Chapter 23 of the Hongloumeng when she happens to walk by the Pear Tree Court where the family’s young opera singers are rehearsing. They hit her so hard that she has to sit down before she passes out. In Professor Hawkes’s vivid translation: “The words moved her to the depth of her being. … It was like intoxication, a sort of delirium. Her legs 12

Lu Eting 映古⹕, “ ‘Youyuan Jingmeng’ jishuo”˨˪忲⚺樂⣊˫普婒˩, in Tang Xianzu yu Mudan ting˪㸗栗䣾冯䈉ᷡṕ˫, vol. 2, ed. Hua Wei 厗䏳 (Taipei: Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy ᷕ⣖䞼䨞昊ᷕ⚳㔯⒚䞼䨞 ㇨, 2005), 708.

40

“Multiflorate Splendour”

would no longer support her. She collapsed on to a near-by rockery and crouched there, the words turning over and over in her mind….”13 In terms of comprehensibility, these lines actually do not present much of a problem. The main challenge to the translator here is rather how to render these simple but beautiful and elegant lines into another language that is equally beautiful and elegant in its simplicity. There is considerable agreement among the three translators in the translation of the first line. In fact, quite interestingly, Chang and Owen translated it exactly the same way: “Because of your flowerlike beauty.” However, a slight but not unimportant difference appears in the translation of the second line. Birch apparently wanted to take the line as a neutral statement on the ephemeral nature of life in general and thus gave it a sort of noncommittal rendering: “as the river of years rolls past.” However, since the line here refers specifically to Liniang, a beautiful young girl of sixteen (or fifteen by Western calculation), Chang’s “in the first flush of fleeting youth” and Owen’s “and your youth flowing past like water” may be preferable. The inclusion of the word “youth” in their translations adds immediately to the poignancy of the line: We are deeply touched, just as Daiyu is, that even a girl as young and beautiful as Liniang cannot withstand the ravishment of time. Compared to the other two translations, Chang’s rendering of the second line as “in the first flush of fleeting youth” may seem a bit free in its abandonment of the water/river imagery of the original, but it reads well and gets across what is meant in the original effectively. Moreover, there is a poetic ring to it with its deliberate alliterative sequence. As a translator, Chang occasionally does appear to be freer than the other two: He would not hesitate to paraphrase once in a while for the sake of clearness in meaning. Another good example of this is the translation of line 10 in this aria (“ze dai ni rennai wencun yishang mian ⇯⼭Ἀ⽵侸㹓 ⬀ᶨ㗴䛈”). Birch’s “bear with me patiently a while/then drift into gentle slumber” and Owen’s “then after you bear/my tender attentions,/enjoy a moment’s sleep” are much more literal than Chang’s “And so submit to love’s brief, sweet embrace.” The term “yanran ⃤䃞” in line 12 sung by Liu and Liniang together could mean different things in different contexts. In the present context, it means something like “[you] look familiar.” Accordingly, Chang and Owen rendered this and the previous line respectively as “Where could we have met?/We gaze and wonder” and “Where have we met before/that we look at each other unsure?” That is to say, both Liu and Liniang have a 13

Hawkes, The Story of the Stone, 466.

John C. Y. Wang

41

vague feeling that they may have met before, but exactly where they are not sure. Birch, however, took “yanran” here to mean “in solemn awe” without apparent justification. Thus he translated lines 11 and 12 as “Somewhere at some past time you and I met./Now we behold each other in solemn awe.” In other words, Birch here seems to imply that, since Liu and Liniang felt that they may have met in some distant past, the fact they were able to meet up again after so many years must be the workings of destiny—something to be treated with utter seriousness. [IX] 烪欹侩⁔烬炷㛓炸╖⇯㗗㶟春呠嬲炻䚳ṾỤ垚⃺ 凔埊≽㈲ 桐ね㏏ˤᶨ凔⃺ ⪴ↅ侈䵣櫪⃺栓ˤ 忁㗗 㘗ᶲ䶋炻゛ℏㆸ炻⚈ᷕ夳ˤ ⏨ 炻㶓恒ら⯽⊑Ḯ 剙⎘㭧ˤ⑙⼭㉰䇯句剙⃺樂愺Ṿˤ炷⎹櫤攨᷇剙ṳ炸Ṿ⣊愋㗍德Ḯ⾶䔁忋烎㉰ 剙攫䠶䘬䲭⤪䇯ˤ (Flower God) Touched by the great generative forces,/already they are transformed:/See how wormlike he writhes, fanning passion’s flame,/How her limpid charms seem frozen, her soul transfixed./This is love in the realm of shadows,/Fulfilled in the thought,/Revealed by the law of foreordination./Alas, the Terrace of Flowers is now defiled. [Let me throw some petals to awaken them. (Throws petals towards the door leading offstage)] Must they still linger/when spring’s dream of love is accomplished?/The fallen petals I threw are already a carpet of red. (Chang) (Flower Spirit) Ah, how the male force surges and leaps/as in the way wanton bee he stirs/the gale of her desire/while her soul trembles/at the dewy brink of a sweet, shaded vale./A mating of shadows, this,/consummation within the mind,/no fruitful Effect/but an apparition within the Cause./Ha, but now my flower palace is sullied by lust. [I must use a falling petal to wake her. (Scatters petals in the entrance to the stage)] Loath she may be to loose herself/from the sweet spellbound dream of spring’s delight,/but petals flutter down/like crimson snow. (Birch) (Flower God) Now the turbid Yang force simmers up/transforming,/and see how he, squirming like worm,/fans her passion./Likewise her soul quivers at the crack/in charming azure foliage./This is but shadows’ conjunction,/fancies brought to fullness within,/things appearing inside Karmic Cause./But, ah, these lewd doings have stained/my galleries of flowers. [I’ll pinch off a blossom and let it fall to wake her. (He goes toward the stage entrance dropping flowers)] How can she linger in her dream,/woozy with spring? —/in red flecks of tattered flowers falling. (Owen)

42

“Multiflorate Splendour”

The first three lines in this aria sung by the Flower Spirit contain a vivid and realistic description of lovemaking by the two lovers out in the garden—even though it is couched in “the most lyrical and picturesque imagery.”14 In Chang’s translation, we again see his occasional tendency to sacrifice literalness for the sake of simplicity and clarity: “Touched by the great generative forces,/already they are transformed:/See how wormlike he writhes, fanning passion’s flame,/How her limpid charms seem frozen, her soul transfixed.” Owen, on the other hand, is more literal and colloquial: “Now the turbid Yang force simmers up/transforming,/and see how he, squirming like worm,/fans her passion./Likewise her soul quivers at the crack/in charming azure foliage.” Of the three translations, Birch’s is perhaps the most lyrical even as it is literal: “Ah, how the male force surges and leaps/as in the way of wanton bee he stirs/the gale of her desire/while her soul trembles/at the dewy brink of a sweet, shaded vale.” [X] 烪Ⱉ㟫䲭烬炷䓇ˣ㖎㓄ㇳᶲ炸炷䓇炸忁ᶨ暶⣑䔁Ṣὧ炻勱啱剙䛈ˤ⮷⥸⎗⤥烎 炷㖎Ỷ柕ṳ炸炷䓇炸⇯㈲暚櫇溆炻䲭㜦侈ῷˤ⮷⥸ẹ⾀Ḯ␝炻夳ḮἈ䵲䚠ῶ炻 ㄊ⺅忋炻【ᶵ⼿倱⃺凔⛀ㆸ䇯ḇ炻徿䘬ᾳ㖍ᶳ傕傪暐ᶲ歖ˤ炷㖎炸䥨ㇵ炻Ἀ ⎗⍣␝烎炷⎰炸㗗恋嗽㚦䚠夳炻䚠䚳⃤䃞炻㖑暋忻忁⤥嗽䚠忊䃉ᶨ妨烎 (Liu re-enters with Liniang, hand in hand) In those lucky moments when Heaven sped man’s wish,/We were sprawled out on the grass, asleep amid flowers. [Are you well, my mistress? —(Liniang lowers her head)] Busily smoothing your locks,/Tangled with red petals, the jade ornaments awry. [Mistress, do not forget] How we clung to each other, reluctant to be untwined,/How my hands sought to knead you into snowy flakes,/How, our tremulous breaths mingling, we broke the virginal seal. [Liniang: Scholar, you should go now.] (Both sing chorus) Where could we have met?/We gaze and wonder;/What, so luckily chanced upon and yet so dumb? (Chang) (Enter Liu, leading Liniang by the hand) For this brief moment/nature was our comforter,/grasses for pillow, our bed a bed of flowers. [Are you all right, Miss Du? (She lowers her head)] Disarrayed the clouds of her hair,/red petals caught/by emerald combs aslant. [O lady, never forget] how close I clasped you/and with what tenderness,/longing only to make/of our two bodies one single flesh/but bringing forth/a glistening of rouge raindrops in the sun. [Liniang: Sir, you must go now.] (Liniang, Liu) 14 Cyril Birch, Scenes for Mandarins: The Elite Theater of the Ming (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 142.

John C. Y. Wang

43

Somewhere at some past time you and I met./Now we behold each other in solemn awe/but do not say/in this lovely place we should meet and speak no word. (Birch) (Enter Liniang and Liu, holding hands. Liu) For this one moment/Heaven gives ease,/sprawled in grass,/asleep on flowers. [How are you? (Liniang lowers her head)] She nods her cloudlike coils of hair,/with tousled red and azure skewered./ [Don’t forget this!] how I clasped you tight/and languidly lingered—/I wish only our flesh/could fuse in a ball,/we drew forth red droplets/that shimmered in the sun. [Liniang: You had better go now.] (Together) Where have we met before/that we look at each other unsure?/How a wonderful moment like this/could we come together without a word? (Owen)

This is both the second and the last aria sung by Liu Mengmei in this scene. It is essentially just a rehash of what has just transpired from a male’s point of view. The way lines 7 and 8 are translated by the three translators is interesting. Again, as we have seen in the translation of the previous aria, Owen’s is the most literal and colloquial: “I wish only our flesh/could fuse in a ball,/we drew forth red droplets/that shimmered in the sun.” Chang’s, on the other hand, is free and direct: “How my hands sought to knead you into snowy flakes,/How, our tremulous breaths mingling, we broke the virginal seal.” By contrast, Birch’s is again at once literal and poetical: “how close I clasped you/and with what tenderness,/longing only to make/of our two bodies one single flesh/but bringing forth/a glistening of rouge raindrops in the sun.” If Owen’s translation of “rouerban tuancheng pian ye 倱⃺凔⛀ㆸ䇯 ḇ” in line 7 as “I wish only our flesh/could fuse in a ball” is kind of mundane (a homely image of a meatball immediately comes to mind), Chang’s “knead you into snowy flakes” is highly fanciful: Could he be thinking of the expression “xueji 暒倴” (snow-white flesh), often seen in old literature to describe a beautiful girl? [XI] 烪䵧㏕䴖烬暐楁暚䇯炻ㇵ⇘⣊⃺怲ˤ䃉⣰檀➪炻╂愺䲿䨿䜉ᶵὧˤ㻹㕘 歖⅟㯿䱀䃶炻 攫䘬ᾢ ⽫え㬍♚炻シ庇櫇ῷˤ ᶵ䇕⣂ 屣䚉䤆ね炻⛸崟婘 ⾢烎⇯⼭⍣䛈ˤ炷層ᶲ炸ɃɃ ⮷⥸炻啘Ḯ塓䩑䜉伟ˤ Love’s tempest dispersing,/Re-echoed still on the horizon of my dream,/When, alas, the voice of stern mother/Called at the window and disturbed sweep sleep:/Cold sweat poured down me, my wet clothes chilled the skin—/This rude awakening leaves my mind a blank, my tread

44

“Multiflorate Splendour” unsteady,/My will dissolved, my curls undone!/If now I rallied my drooping spirits/And sat up determinedly, who would rejoice?/Then let me sleep. [Chunxiang (reenters): … Mistress, I have scented the bedding. Rest now.] (Chang) Through scudding of “clouds and rain”/I had touched the borders of dream/when the lady my mother/called me, alas! And broke/this slumber by window’s sunlit gauze./Now clammy cold a perspiration breaks,/now heart numbs, footsteps falter,/thought fails, hair slants awry,/and whether to sit or stand/is more than mind can decide/—then let me sleep again. [Chunxiang (enters): … Young mistress, I have aired the bedclothes for you to sleep now.] (Birch) Rain’s sweet scent, a puff of cloud/just came to my side in dream./But, alas, the lady of the house/called me awake from my fitful sleep/by the gauzes-screened window./A burst of fresh cold sweat/sticks to and stings./It drives my heart to distraction,/my footsteps freeze,/my thoughts waver,/my hair hangs askew./All spirit is almost spent,/and since neither sitting nor standing pleases me,/let me go off back to sleep! [(Enter) Chunxiang: … The covers have been scented, so let’s go to sleep.] (Owen)

After Liu Mengmei leaves, Liniang calls after him and wakes up momentarily before falling asleep again. Just then her mother stops by and Liniang wakes up with such a start (not surprising given the furtive and sensitive nature of the dream) that she breaks out in a cold sweat. Totally drained physically and emotionally now by her mother’s surprise visit as well as her passionate dream, the only thing she could do, she tells us in this aria, is go back to sleep. Birch may have misread the character “xian ⾢” (glad, pleased) in line 9 and thus translated the whole line as “and whether to sit or stand/is more than mind can decide.” [XII] 烪⯦倚烬 炷㖎炸 ⚘㗍⽫忲岆῎炻ḇᶵ䳊楁啘三塓䛈ˤ⣑␝ 炻㚱⽫ ね恋⣊ ⃺怬⍣ᶵ怈ˤ The sequestered heart, tired with its ramble in spring,/Will sleep without aid of perfume or embroidered quilt./Heaven above! Since I am so inclined, the dream cannot yet be far off. (Chang) For heart spring-burdened, limbs/now lax from garden strolling,/no need of incense-aired/brocaded covers to entice to slumber./Ah, Heaven,/let the dream I dreamed be not yet fled too far. (Birch)

John C. Y. Wang

45

This spring-troubled heart is weary/ from roaming; it seeks/no scented broidered quilts to sleep./Heaven! —if you care,/let not that dream be gone too far. (Owen)

As can be seen in both Birch’s and Owen’s translations, in this last aria sung by Liniang in this scene, what is uppermost in her mind is not if the bed covers are scented, but rather a wistful longing that the dream is not gone too far yet. Chang, however, chose to make Liniang appear more assertive and defiant by rendering the last line as “Since I am so inclined,/ The dream cannot yet be far off.” But given the fact that Liniang has barely recovered from the shock caused by her mother’s sudden unannounced visit, the reading offered by Birch and Owen seems to make better sense. It should be clear by now that not one of the three translations may be said to be truly superior to the other two. All three are strong and excellent translations in their own right. And yet there are places in all three where there is still room for further improvement. Although I would not go so far as Robert Frost in saying that poetry is what is lost in translation, the three translations do serve to show the sometimes almost insurmountable obstacles that can face even the most accomplished translators of poetry. Perhaps there is simply no such thing as a perfect literary translation, especially of the poetic kind. None the less, in an increasingly interconnected but unfortunately also tension-ridden world, the need for better mutual understanding, especially on a cultural level, becomes even more urgent. Unless and until we all become true polyglots, which is unlikely, good competent literary translations, such as the three we have seen, will continue to play a vital role in cross-cultural communication.

SITTING WITH SIMA QIAN: RECOLLECTIONS OF TRANSLATING THE SHIJI (1988–2011) WILLIAM H. NIENHAUSER, JR. DEPARTMENT OF EAST ASIAN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN

[I] Introduction Dr. Johnson is said to have defined an essay as “a loose sally of the mind.” In that sense, what I am going to read from today is an essay of sorts. Perhaps more a memoir. Recollections of how and why I began in 1989, with a team of colleagues, to translate the Shiji˪⎚姀˫, a text we translate as “The Grand Scribe’s Records.” I shall also touch on what I have learned about translation and translators during the twenty-plus years since that beginning. I would also like to share with you an account of how our group works by re-enacting our exchanges in a March 2011 meeting on the “Xunli liezhuan”˨⽒⎷↿⁛˩(“Memoir of the Officials Who Followed [Reasonable Methods]”). Finally, I will offer a few comments on the future of our project.

[II] The Various Tables at Which We Sat Although I had read sections of the Shiji prior to 1988, I had done so primarily in tandem with the excellent translations by Burton Watson, I had no idea about the complex textual history of the Shiji or the many attempts to translate it into a Western language. Moreover, I assumed that the Zhonghua ᷕ厗㚠⯨ edition, hammered out hurriedly in the late 1950s in preparation for the tenth anniversary of the founding of the PRC by Gu

48

Sitting with Sima Qian: Recollections of Translating the Shiji

Jiegang 栏柉∃ (1893–1980) and Song Yunbin ⬳暚⼔ (1897–1979),1 was not only the received text, but also one that had been carefully prepared. I also had no intention to embark on a “big project,” having just finished the first volume of the Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature a few years previously. My wife cautioned me that another such project would lead to me “sleeping in the garage.” Moreover, I considered myself a “Tang man,” devoted to untangling problems such as the relationship between the guwen ⎌㔯 writers and those who had begun to compose Tang tales. I was fond of Liu Zongyuan’s 㞛⬿⃫ (773–810) pseudobiographies and had begun to translate some of them. Some of these accounts end with an authorial comment, not unlike those found at the end of most chapters in the Shiji itself. As I moved from Liu Zongyuan’s texts like “Li Chi zhuan”˨㛶崌⁛˩(“The Story of Crimson Li”) to read other Tang tales, I struggled with the language. Three years before we began work on the Shiji, in 1985–86, I had been living in on Wenzhou Jie 㹓ⶆ埿 in Taipei. C. K. Wang 䌳䥳㟪 of National Taiwan University, a mentor of sorts, lived a block away. I consulted with C. K. at least twice a week on various things, and on 7 July wrote him about questions I had concerning the “Nanke Taishou zhuan”˨⋿㞗⣒⬰⁛˩. This led to a late night conversation sometime in mid-July at C. K’s apartment. Those of you who know C. K. realize that he is a night owl. Since I had morning classes, these midnight sessions were always troublesome to me. I began by telling C. K. that I only had a few minutes. He replied, “Sit down, I want to talk to you about some developments in the department.” After five minutes or so, I pressed him on “Nanke”: “Chiu-kuei, I really have to figure these two passages out, since I’m teaching them tomorrow afternoon.” But C. K. would only say, “Those tales have some difficult passages. You’ll learn how to read them if you first read all of the Shiji. It will be a good exercise for you.” When I insisted on talking about Wang Meng’ou’s 䌳⣊浿 notes, C. K. broke in, “It’s not Wang Meng’ou, but Sima Qian ⎠楔怟 who will be the key.” I finally made it home by 1 a.m. My questions about “Nanke” remained unanswered, but the seed of a Shiji project was implanted in my brain. I began to read some of the Shiji biographies in Burton Watson’s translation. After a few months I began to read the original texts and started to claim that I was “researching the Shiji.” One night when I was waiting in a hallway to pick up my wife, who taught English in the National Taiwan University English-language night programme, one of 1 See the biography of Song in Grand Scribe’s Records, 9:404–7, and the article by Nienhauser, “Historians of China,” CLEAR 17 (1995): 207–16.

William H. Nienhauser, Jr.

49

her students, a young woman in her twenties, strode up to me and smiled. “I understand you are a Shiji expert. That’s not easy for a foreigner.” I was a bit taken aback, but modestly replied, “Well, I am just beginning to understand a few things.” “Oh,” she said “What do you think of the story of Han Xin 杻ᾉ and the butcher?” I blanched, but took the high road: “Uh, Han Xin, I’m afraid I haven’t read that part yet.” Her mouth dropped open, but after a few pregnant seconds her smile returned and she said, “If you haven’t read that part, you can’t really say you have begun to work on the Shiji. Every high school kid knows that story.” Abashed I quickly made some excuse and went outside to wait. Now I realize that the way I had approached the Shiji, reading the “liezhuan” in order starting with “Bo Yi” ˨ỗ⣟˩and Chapter 61, was not the way Chinese students learned the text. They studied the twenty to thirty “famous chapters” that have made up the reading of most students since the Song Dynasty (or at least that is what the various selections of Shiji chapters published since that time suggest).2 At the time I only wanted to rush home and find the Han Xin biography. I read it and felt a little better. The anecdotes at the beginning reminded me of the Wu Zi Xu ẵ⫸傍 biography which I had been trying to read in the Chinese original. I realized then that Watson, who focused on the Shiji’s presentation of Han history, had not translated some of the best chapters in the text. The biographies of Wu Zi Xu, Tian Dan 䓘╖, and Jing Ke 勲庣 came immediately to mind. In the aftermath of the encounter with my wife’s abrasive student I began to consider translating all the chapters that had not yet been rendered into English (Burton Watson) or French. This impulse was in keeping with earlier translators such as Erich Haenisch (1880–1966) and Fritz Jäger (1886–1957) who both had intended to complete the work that Édouard Chavannes (1865– 1918) had begun so nobly in the early 1890s.3 I discussed this plan with C. K., but he directed me towards compiling a new text of the Shiji. “Scholars on the mainland have pointed out too many problems with the Zhonghua 2

The selection by Wang Boxiang 䌳ỗ䤍 (1890–1975) in his Shiji xuan˪⎚姀怠˫ (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1955), which became the basis for the translation by Yang Xianyi 㣲ㅚ䙲 and Gladys Yang, Records of the Historian (Rpt. Hong Kong: The Commercial Press, 1985), typify this tendency. 3 On Haenisch and Jager’s work, see section four, “Modern Translations of the Text,” in the “Introduction,” The Grand Scribe’s Records, ed. William H. Nienhauser, Jr. (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1994), xv-xvii and the biography of Haenisch in The Grand Scribe’s Records, Volume VIII: The Memoirs of Han China, Part I (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2008), 417–20.

50

Sitting with Sima Qian: Recollections of Translating the Shiji

edition,” he argued. Eventually, by staying later than 1 a.m. on that particular evening, I was able to convince C. K. that editing a new Chinese edition of the Shiji was beyond my capabilities. He finally agreed that a translation of the remaining chapters not done by Watson (primarily the pre-Qin biographies) and Édouard Chavannes (1865–1918; the Han hereditary houses) would be a significant task. But for a good part of a year I went back to working on Liu Zongyuan 㞛⬿⃫ and Tang tales and the Shiji was virtually forgotten. Then during one of our late-night talks, C. K. told me with little fanfare that the Wenjian Hui 㔯⺢㚫 (The Council on Cultural Planning and Development) was planning to give out four or five large grants to translation projects. He suggested I propose the Shiji project. I made some inquiries by visiting the Council, before we returned home to Madison. Once settled at home again, I was able to persuade two colleagues, Associate Professor Tsai-fa Cheng 惕ℵ䘤 and his graduate student Robert Reynolds, into joining me in the project. I had worked with Tsai-fa on other small projects and thought his expertise in classical Chinese and his knowledge of existing scholarship would be a boon. Robert Reynolds had done his B.A. at National Taiwan University and was working on Han-dynasty grammar. He was also one of our brightest graduate students. I was often amazed and sometimes embarrassed by Robert’s attention to grammatical detail in reading the Shiji in my classes (I started teaching seminars on the Shiji about 1990). One of my own graduate students, Chan Chiu-ming 昛䄏㖶, 4 who was working as my project assistant, was also part of the first “Gang of Four.” With a team in hand, attention was turned to determining our intended audience and setting up a style and format. I realized that Burton Watson’s style would be difficult to match, especially by a team of translators. For several weeks I pored over translations of Greek histories by French, German, and English scholars. In every case the popular translations with little scholarly apparatus were juxtaposed on library shelves to heavily annotated renditions—especially those in German. Thus I determined that a very literal translation, with textual and contextual notes, might suit the composite nature of our team and the needs of the Sinological community, something that could stand up to Watson’s work by complementing it. The idea of appending a translator’s note to each chapter was one that I had toyed with in class and which may well have been influenced by the style of Japanese translations of Chinese literature. All this was a complete 4

Chan Chiu-ming worked as my project assistant to produce drafts of seven chapters but was not really a part of our working group. He got his Ph.D. in 1991 and left Madison for a job in Hong Kong.

William H. Nienhauser, Jr.

51

turnaround, since when I had begun to translate Chinese poetry as a graduate student at Indiana University in the mid-1960s. I joined a group organized by Professor Irving Yu-cheng Lo to translate Tang poetry. The monthly sessions at Professor Lo’s home were raucous evenings that involved a great deal of wine and excited discussion. Our translations were modelled on the senior student in the group, Jerome “Sandy” Seaton and aimed at free, poetic versions. But in working on the Shiji I found that the stuffier “scholarly style” our Shiji group had opted for worked well. With a team and a plan in hand, I applied to the Wenjian Hui for three years of funding and shortly thereafter received a start-up grant of just over US$140,000, quite a sum in 1989.5 Boosted by this largesse, our team began translating Shiji chapters simply from the Zhonghua text. For the first few months of 1989 we worked independently. The Tian’an Men Incident occurred. At about the same time a young scholar who had been the deputy head of the Qin and Han History section of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences had made his way to Alberta, Canada. This was Lü Zongli ⏪⬿≃, the fifth member of our translation group and the person, other than myself, who has remained most active in the project almost since its inception. It was C. K. Wang again who suggested I recruit Zongli to come to the University of Wisconsin as a graduate student. There was a problem, however, since Zongli spoke rudimentary English (his second language was Russian) and would have had difficulty with TOEFL examination, were he to take it. At the time the Associate Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Wisconsin was William “Chuck” Reed, an admirer of our project, in part because of the large grant we had received. C. K. Wang wrote to Dean Reed insisting that textual work was needed on the Zhonghua edition of the Shiji. As he put it in his letter to me of 2 May 1990, “I have sent by separate mail the recommendation for Lü Zongli. I hope you don’t mind my underestimating your competency in textual studies (I was just trying to find a way to convince your dean that Lü Zongli is ‘indispensable’).” 5 This again with C. K. Wang’s help. It seems the Wenjian Hui was quite dependent on Chiu-kuei. He says (personal letter of 5 August 1989: “Wen-chien hui doesn’t know yet what to do with their budget. I took [John] Minford to visit their chairman, who seemed to be more interested in getting contemporary Taiwan literature translated.” They eventually funded four projects: John Minford and Joseph S. M. Lau’s Classical Chinese Literature, An Anthology of Translations, Volume I: From Antiquity to the Tang Dynasty (New York and Hong Kong: Columbia University Press and The Chinese University Press, 2000), Stephen Owen’s An Anthology of Chinese Literature, Beginnings to 1911 (New York and London: W. W. Norton, 1996), our Shiji project, and a fourth I do not recall.

52

Sitting with Sima Qian: Recollections of Translating the Shiji

Chuck Reed agreed to admit Zongli to graduate school if he would promise to study English intensively during his first year in Madison and then come back for a personal examination in Chuck’s office at the end of that time. Zongli thus arrived in August 1989. By the summer of 1991, Zongli had met and impressed Reed with his newly learned English. I had spent a year working on my chapters in Taiwan, talking on occasion with Wang Shumin 䌳⍼ⱟ at Academia Sinica, and examining some rare editions of the Shiji in the library there.6 I also brought back a few draft translations of chapters (61, 62, and 65). During early 1991 the other members of the group had also completed drafts so that we were able to sit down in an office provided for us by the University of Wisconsin and go over about fifteen draft chapters line by line. At first, we met in my dining room in 1991, where we would spend several mornings every week looking over draft translations. After about a month we secured an office on campus in a building on the south shore of beautiful Lake Mendota. Our office faced south, away from the lake, so our view was only of basketball courts, but it was a place to assemble some books and meet with no distractions. All four of us settled into our new office and five mornings a week all summer began to read the draft of “Bo Yi and Shu Qi”˨ỗ⣟⍼滲˩the first of the memoirs or “liezhuan.” We worked five mornings a week using the Zhonghua edition as our base text, but gradually also learning that we had to consult Wang Liqi’s 䌳⇑ ☐ baihua 䘥 娙 translation, Shiji zhuyi ˪ ⎚ 姀 㲐 嬗 ˫ , Takigawa Kametaro’s 㿏ⶅ潄⣒恶 (1865–1946) text and notes, Shiki kaichnj koshǀ ˪⎚姀㚫㲐侫嫱˫, and Wang Shumin’s (1914–2008) commentary, Shiji jiaozheng˪⎚姀㕈嫱˫.7 While that first chapter went well enough, by the time we got to “Sun Zi and Wu Qi”˨⬓⫸⏛崟˩, Chapter 65, about a week later, there had been a lot of back and forth between Tsai-fa and Robert Reynolds over minutiae. While their discussions were interesting, 6

After a year as a fellow at the Hanxue Zhongxin 㻊⬠ᷕ⽫ at the Central Library in Taipei, I had stopped off in Japan on my way home and met with Professor Tsuru Haruo 悥 䔁 㗍 ⣓ and Kamitaka Tokuharu 䤆 涡 ⽟ 㳣 (through the introductions by Professor Kawai Kǀzǀ ⶅ⎰⹟ᶱ of Kyoto University). I also bought a number of “reprints” of texts we would use in our translation. I had also visited the Wenjian Hui before leaving Taipei and had a good working relationship with several of the important people there. 7 Takigawa was published originally in Tokyo in 1934 and reprinted by Shanghai Guji ᶲ 㴟 ⎌ 䯵 in 1986; and Wang Shumin’s study was published by the Academia Sinica in 1982. We also consulted the Bona 䘦䲵 and Jingyou 㘗䣸 editions, two texts not seen by the Zhonghua editors.

William H. Nienhauser, Jr.

53

they had begun to take up more and more of our meeting time. When we got to the part in Wu Qi’s biography where his habits as a general were reviewed on a Friday morning in the late spring, we came across the lines “yu shizu zui xia zhe tong yishi. Wo bu she xi. 冯⢓⋺㚨ᶳ侭⎴堋梇ˤ再 ᶵ姕ⷕ,” “he ate the same food as officers and men of the lowest ranks and in sleeping did not spread out a mat.” Here the situation deteriorated further. For nearly two hours Tsai-fa and Robert tilted against one another about how a gentleman would seat himself and how he would sleep, focusing on the use of mats, the various ways of saluting from the mat, the types of mats used, and so on and so forth.8 By the following day, I had decided that a new set-up was needed: Tsai-fa and I would work independently on the basic annals (“benji”˨㛔䲨˩) that would make up volume one of our translation and then meet every Friday to go over them—Tsai-fa did the draft translation and I would suggest revisions and write the footnotes. The other four days of the week I would continue working with Zongli and Robert on the memoirs (“liezhuan”) which had been translated primarily by Robert and Chiu-ming.9 After a few months of working on these translations I decided that this could become a project to work on for the near future. I wrote to John Gallman, the Director of Indiana University Press, who had published my Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature in 1986, proposing a complete translation of the Shiji. In August 1991 John gave me a contract to publish an English rendering of the entire Shiji in six volumes English which I envisioned would be completed by August 1996. In this I did not have the same luck as Burton Watson who, when he proposed his Records of the Grand Historian project to Professor Francis Cleaves of Harvard and explained that he thought it would take three years to complete, was told by Cleaves that he should have said “thirty years!”10 Although now I understand what Cleaves meant in 1991: I was naïvely optimistic. I made up my mind not to cut my hair until the job was done, purchased baseball hats that read Shiji in Chinese for all the members of the group, and hung photos of Chavannes, Haenisch and Gu Jiekang in my study. Although I still have one of the hats, I have cut my hair on occasion since then. Our system of meeting in separate groups remained in place through that summer of 1991 and the following one (1992) until we completed reviewing almost all the chapters of the first volumes. It was Robert 8

A number of useful and detailed glossary entries ensued from this debate. Of the 28 chapters in volume 7, Zongli and I translated 4 or 5, Chiu-ming 7, and Robert 13 or 14. 10 See Watson’s “The Shih Chi and I,” CLEAR 17 (1995), 201–2. 9

54

Sitting with Sima Qian: Recollections of Translating the Shiji

Reynolds who began to work up a glossary, since we realized we needed one to keep our somewhat different styles more consistent. Although the team all had copies of this growing document with us in our meetings (a few pages can be seen in Appendix I), Robert seemed to have memorized the list and often saved us time through his facility at recalling how we had translated this or that weeks earlier. The glossary also served several purposes beyond making our styles more consistent. Since we felt that one of Sima Qian’s stylistic devices was to repeat a single term often in a particular passage (“zhi ren 䞍Ṣ,” in “Cike liezhuan” ˨⇢⭊↿⁛˩, for example), our glossary allowed us to reproduce this reiteration in our translations. Moreover, we wanted to avoid the kind of conflation that can be seen in the King James Bible where “no fewer than fourteen different Hebrew words [have been rendered by ...] the single term ‘prince’....”11 Thus we distinguished between “gong 㓣” (to attack), “yu zhan 冯㇘” (to give battle to), “fa Ẹ” (to lead a punitive expedition against). Similarly “to expedition against,” “ji 㑲” (to assault, strike at),” “ju qing zhi ⯭枫ᷳ” (after a short time had passed) vis-à-vis “jiu zhi ᷭᷳ” (after a short time), “qing zhi 枫ᷳ” (some time later) , and “ji er 㖊侴” (after some time) were carefully distinguished. Later we also developed a style sheet that we still use (Appendix II). We had promised the Wenjian Hui we would do all the chapters not included in Chavannes and Watson, but our contract with Indiana University Press only stipulated Chapters 1–7 and 61–88 for the first two volumes. Thus by the end of 1992, with deadlines from Indiana University Press and the Wenjian Hui both looming, we “borrowed” much of our work on Chapter 130 (“Taishigong zixu”˨⣒⎚℔冒⸷˩) from Watson’s Ssu-ma Ch’ien, Grand Historian of China, cobbled together renditions of Chapters 126 from existing partial translations, and somehow came up with a rough translation of Chapter 128. The drafts of both 126 and 128 have disappeared, presumably left on a hard disk somewhere and in the files of the Wenjian Hui. Other chapters were done with much more care. As each chapter was “finished,” we sent it to outside readers, fortunate to have a number of excellent scholars review our work: Michael Loewe, Derk Bodde, C. S. Goodrich, Robert Henricks, David N. Keightley, Lothar von Falkenhausen and David Pankenier each read some of the drafts of the basic annals and 11

From Arnold Hunt’s “The Locus Tree, Mysteries and Mistranslations in the Making of the King James Bible, Still the Most Influential Version 400 Years after Its Birth,” Times Literary Supplement, 11 February 2011 (cf. n. 16).

William H. Nienhauser, Jr.

55

offered a number of useful comments; Victor Mair went through the “Introduction.” Mair, Henricks, Hulséwe, Goodrich, David Knechtges, Allyn Rickett, Hsu Cho-yun, Jens Petersen, and Stephen Durrant read several of the teams’ “liezhuan” renditions. Juan Chih-sheng 旖剅䓇, Tu Cheng-sheng 㜄㬋⊅, Su Ching 喯䱦, Kuan Tung-kuei 䭉㜙屜, Wang Shumin, and Wu Shuping ⏛㧡⸛ provided references and hard-to-find materials. Other than Hulséwe and von Falkenhausen, we received much encouragement from our readers.12 Although we tried to provide notes on secondary scholarship throughout the first two volumes, we realized (or rationalized) that our primary responsibility was to translate the text, to bring out the problems that the Shiji presents. To the best of our abilities, we would point out problems in the larger historical context, but this task (like the settling of a new critical edition of the text that Wang Chiu-kuei suggested to me in 1986) was something for other scholars to undertake. I came away from the first three years of our project with a working plan: employ a team that could work harmoniously together, use a glossary and a style sheet to standardize the translation, and be patient. Sima Qian spent years on his history, we would have to do the same with our translation. By the summer of 1993 we had begun to translate the remaining basic annals (Chapters 7–12). I spent June and July, supported by a Committee on Scholarly Communication with China fellowship, at Shifan Daxue ⷓ 䭬⣏⬠ in Beijing. My wife and I lived in the Expert’s Building in a rambling first floor apartment. My mentor was Han Zhaoqi 杻⃮䏎, the distinguished Shiji scholar, and I was able to consult Professor Han on various questions. Although I began to translate “Gaozu benji”˨檀䣾㛔 䲨˩during the summer, I spent many hours adjusting our mosquito nets and carrying groceries from Xinjiekou 㕘埿⎋ home (we discovered to our delight that Russian vodka was extremely cheap). On several Sundays we biked through the city with Steve and Susan West winding up at the Shangri la Hotel for their brunch, something I can no longer afford (the brunch, that is). In 1994 the first two volumes of the Grand Scribe’s Records were published and I sojourned in Taipei again, this time supported by Fulbright-Hayes and ACLS fellowships, devoting much time to editing the second volume of the Indiana Companion. I also began to seriously plan 12

Hulséwe did not like our “wooden style” and von Falkenhausen was unimpressed with our knowledge of archeological discoveries (and probably a great deal else besides).

56

Sitting with Sima Qian: Recollections of Translating the Shiji

the third volume (volume 2 in the sequence) of our translations and continued working on “Gaozu benji.” The original Madison group was gone. Lü Zongli and Robert Reynolds had both finished their dissertations and found jobs in East Asia and Tsai-fa Cheng was working on his own projects. During this year and a half in Taiwan I received a second grant from the Wenjian Hui for US$20,000 to support two project assistants to work on the second half of the basic annals (Chapters 7–12 which became volume 2 of the Grand Scribe’s Records later). These monies would, I hoped, help to establish a new group when I got back to Madison. But this was a time of fervent flux in Taiwan society and no sooner had the grant been made than the Wenjian Hui began to regret it. I was called in to their main office and chastised by a secretary for my “lack of interest in Taiwan literature.” I tried to explain that our application had been to continue translating the Shiji and I did not see the relevance of Taiwan literature, but the handwriting was on the wall. Soon after I returned to Madison the Wenjian Hui put several stipulations on the grant that they knew the University of Wisconsin research administration would not accept and finally I had to refuse the award. Fortunately, when I returned to Madison in the fall of 1996, however, the nucleus of a new group appeared in my graduate classes: Cao Weiguo 㚡堃⚳, Scott Galer, Bruce Knickerbocker, Chen Zhi 昛农, and others. Although we had no outside grants, there was support from the Research Committee of the University of Wisconsin (for project assistants). Moreover, this new group was willing to work unpaid. We translated not only the basic annals, but also some of the Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao ˪⚃⹓ℐ㚠䷥䚖㍸天˫notices (several were published in volume two of the Grand Scribe’s Records). In the summer of 1996 I worked in the library at Academia Sinica and attended a Conference celebrating the 2140th anniversary of Sima Qian’s birth in Xi’an. We visited Hancheng 杻 ❶ where the local officials enjoyed the opportunity to eat, drink and smoke at a level that would have offended the Grand Scribe and often sent me outside for a “fresh-air break.” Aside from rubbing elbows with most of the major scholars in Mainland China (and a number of aficionados of all stripes) who were working on the Shiji, I was also fortunate to meet the scholar and Shiji translator Imataka Makoto Ṳ 涡 䛆 , who gave me a copy of the handwritten manuscript of “Gaozu benji” preserved in Japan. Early in the following summer (1997) I went to the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin to see the Haenisch Nachlass and was able to determine that although Haenisch had left some notes on various chapters not yet translated, there were no draft manuscripts in that collection. In October through the auspices of Jacques

William H. Nienhauser, Jr.

57

Gernet I was able to visit the draft translations (handwritten, of course) and the note cards that Chavannes left, now held in the Musée Guimet. Professor Gernet also took me to see Chavannes’s personal library, which has been carefully preserved by the Société Asiatique. Chavannes used a Ming edition in which many chapters had been marked with lines of redink dots suggesting that his tutor13 may have highlighted them. In the meantime, the new team in Madison had been busy, finishing translations of Chapters 8–11 (Cao Weiguo rendered 10, and Scott Galer translated 11, and I did 8 and 9) and beginning the work on Chapters 31– 40. We enlisted David Pankenier of Lehigh University to translate Chapter 12. Instead of sending out these translations to readers, we first brought readers to Madison for a Workshop on Early Chinese History and Historiography (23–27 August 2011). Each of the five participants–Chen Zhi from National Singapore University, Scott Cook from Grinnell College, David Honey from Brigham Young University, Lü Zongli from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and David Pankenier of Lehigh University—read a paper in addition to discussing one of the draft chapters.14 These revised drafts were then read by Rafe de Crespigny (Chapters 8–10), Michael Loewe (Chapter 8), John Page (Chapters 8–10) and Michael Puett (Chapter 8). David Pankenier’s chapter was finished in 1999 and we had a small-scale Workshop on it on 19 August 2000 with Lü Zongli and Michael Lackner joining University of Wisconsin faculty and graduate students. For the next several years our Shiji group met less frequently. In November 1998 I visited Suzhou 喯ⶆ and was taken by Wang Yundu 䌳 暚⹎ of Suzhou Normal University to visit Pei 㱃 and Feng 寸 counties to see the sites supposedly related to Liu Bang’s ∱恎 birth and childhood. The following summer (1999) I was at the University of Bonn and exchanged ideas on our project with Professors Wolfgang Kubin and Rolf Trauzettl. The fall semester I was a Visiting Research Professor in the 13

Chavannes was tutored by a jinshi graduate whom he never identified (see also Nienhauser, “A Note on Édouard Chavannes’ Unpublished Translations of the Shih chi,” in Zurück zur Freude. Studien zur chinesischen Literatur und Lebenswelt und ihrer Rezeption in Ost und West. Festschrift für Wolfgang Kubin, eds. M. Hermann and C. Schwermann. Monumenta Serica Monograph Series 52. (Sankt Augustin - Nettetal: Steyler Verlag), 755–65. 14 David Honey presented “Ssu-ma Ch’ien’s Hsiung-nu logos: A Textcritical Study,” Lü Zongli read “Questions about the Fei River,” David Pankenier spoke about “Celestial Observations/Field Allocation (Fenye) Astrology and Historiography,” Scott Cook’s paper was “Sima Qian and the Universal Mind,” and Chen Zhi talked on “Prolegomena to a Generic Study of the Huayang guozhi.”

58

Sitting with Sima Qian: Recollections of Translating the Shiji

Faculty of Letters, Kyoto University, affording me the opportunity to examine the numerous rare editions of Shiji texts held in their library and to meet Fujita Katsuhisa 喌䓘⊅ᷭ, professor at Ehime University in Matsuyama, Shikoku, and one of Japan’s leading Shiji scholars.15 On my return to Madison in the spring of 2000, our group of HanGeorg Möller, Maria Isayeva, Cao Weiguo, Bruce, Su Zhi, David Herrmann, Huang Yongyu, Shang Cheng, and Song Jingtao began work on the first ten “shijia”˨ᶾ⭞˩(hereditary house) texts which would eventually become Grand Scribe’s Records, volume 5.1.16 But a number of members of this group were about to finish their degrees and I was concerned about how to replace them. Therefore, already in 2000 I had begun to make inquiries about whether a team of translators could be put together in Germany. Working with professors Michael Lackner (Erlangen) and Hans van Ess (Munich) I arranged to set up a group in 2003. That same year, with the backing of Lackner and van Ess, I received a Forschungspreis from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation enabling me to spend six months in Erlangen (January–July 2003). With Lackner hosting all the early meetings, we set up a schedule to finish Chapters 89– 112 within three years. The new group consisted of Lackner, van Ess, Michael Schimmelpfennig (an assistant at Erlangen University), Christian Meyer (finishing his dissertation under Lackner at Erlangen), Professor Reinhard Emmerich and his assistant Enno Giele (from the University of Münster), and three of van Ess’s students, Marc Nürnberger, Christiana Haupt, and Judith Suwald. Two of my graduate students from the University of Wisconsin, Wang Jing and Zhao Hua, both of whom had translated chapters for volume 5.1, joined us in Erlangen.17 The German group met several times in the fall of 2003 and in spring 2004, 2005, and 2006, all of the latter meetings in Munich. From the efforts of this group– to which translations by Elisabeth Hsü of Oxford University (who rendered “Tsang-kung”˨ᾱ℔˩), Michael Farmer (“Wei Jiangjun Piaoqi 15

Towards the end of the stay I was invited by Isobe Akira 䢗悐⼘ to visit the library and archives of Tohoku University in Sendai to review their collection of materials and photos related to Takigawa Kametarǀ (1865–1946). 16 Other students in Madison who took part in the Shiji Group between 2000 and 2010 included Liu Qian, Meghan Cai, Mei Ah Tan, Wang Miaomiao, Xiao Tie, Xie Ning, Wang Yülin, Liu Ying, He Li, Liu Weijia, Liu Hai, Su Henghua, Lü Xiang, Na Yuli, Wu Lianlian, Wu Chen, Ma Nan, Tom Noel, Maria Kobseva, Erik Lommen, Jin Xiaojuan, Chen Ji, Maria Isayeva, Zou Xin, Qin Ying, Zhang Wen, Chang Chun-ting, Wen Zheng, Dong Huimin, Zhang Zhenjun, and Yu Xiang. 17 Jianqing Zhu of Munich and Dorothée Schaab-Hanke of the University of Hamburg also joined us for several meetings.

William H. Nienhauser, Jr.

59

liezhuan”˨堃⮯幵槫榶↿⁛˩), Stephen Durrant (“Wei Bao, Peng Yue liezhuan”˨櫷尡⼕崲↿⁛˩), He Li ỽ㛶 and Qin Ying 䦎䧶 (“Han Changru liezhuan”˨杻攟⬢↿⁛˩) were added—volumes 8 and 9 of the Grand Scribe’s Records emerged (containing Chapters 89–112). The drafts for volume 8 were reviewed at the Fourth Workshop (15–19 September 2004) by Scott Cook, William Crowell (University of Oregon), Nicola Di Cosmo (Institute for Advanced Research, Princeton University), Stephen Durrant, J. Michael Farmer (Brigham Young University), and David Schaberg (UCLA), and those for volume 9 at the Fifth Workshop (22–24 August 2008) with J. Michael Farmer (University of Texas at Dallas), Enno Giele (University of Arizona), Lü Zongli, Bruce Knickerbocker (Northwestern University) and Marc Nürnberger (University of Munich) as the discussants. Volume 9 was also supported by a small grant (US$17,500), with an attendant huge pile of paperwork, from the Wenjian Hui. Back in the U.S. volume 2 of the Grand Scribe’s Records was published (2002) and a Third Workshop on Chapters 31–40 held from 26 to 31 August 2002, with six discussants: Scott Cook, Scott Galer (Brigham Young University in Idaho), Fujita Katsuhisa (Ehime University), Grant Hardy (University of North Carolina at Asheville), Lü Zongli, and David Schaberg. A new Madison Shiji group that included Zhang Zhenjun, Wang Jing, Zhao Hua, and David Herrmann was active in reviewing translations designed for volumes 8 and 9. Volume 5.1 appeared in 2006, and volumes 8 and 9 in 2008 and 2010.

[III] The Best Seats: Overlooking the Lake From this lengthy, detailed, tedious, and digressive history of the project, let us move to what I hope will be a more lively description of our last meeting on the fourteenth floor of Van Hise Hall in Madison, a room finally with a wonderful view of Lake Mendota. On a recent Saturday afternoon, 26 March 2011 all fourteen members of the group met (one American student, one Russian, ten from China and one from Taiwan). We were going to review a first-draft translation of “Xunli liezhuan,” Chapter 119 in the Shiji. The chapter had been divided as usual into sections (the introduction, the five biographies, and the historian’s comment at the end) and two students had been assigned to review each section. Our group’s procedure is for one member to read the translation (not the translator who is usually busy making notes) pausing after each sentence. If there are no comments for that sentence, it is considered acceptable and the reader moves on to the next sentence. Whenever there

60

Sitting with Sima Qian: Recollections of Translating the Shiji

is a question or comment, a discussion often ensues. This is not unlike the procedure followed by the King James Bible translators.18 What follows is a rough account (from memory) of how our meeting went. The draft version of the first paragraph, Sima Qian’s preface, read (for the draft version of the entire chapter and the original text, see Appendix III): [119.3099] His Honor the Grand Scribe says, “Laws and orders are that by which one guides the people, punishments and penalties are that by which one prohibits villainy.19 Although the civil and military [laws and rules] are not complete, the reason good people will fearfully cultivate themselves is that those in official positions have not yet acted disorderly. As long as [officials] accept the duties of their positions and follow reasonable methods, they can still effect good government. What need is there for threats and severity?

We quickly removed the definite article “the” before villainy and then got into a discussion about what “wen 㔯” and “wu 㬎” referred to in “wen wu bu bei 㔯㬎ᶵ⁁.” The baihua translation by Wu Shuping and Lü Zongli20 reads: “Suiran wen de bu bei, wugong bu yang. 晾䃞㔯⽟ᶵ⁁炻 18

“They [the KJB translators] met together, and one read the translation, the rest holding in their hands some Bible of the learned tongues, or French, Spanish, Italian, etc.; if they found any fault they spoke, if not, he read on” (Hunt, “The Locus Tree, Mysteries and Mistranslations,” 11 February 2011, 3. 19 Compare the opening lines of “Kuli liezhuan”˨感⎷↿⁛˩(“The Memoir of the Harsh Officials”) (Shih chi, 122.3131), which begins with a citation of Confucius from the Analects (Lun yü˪婾婆˫, 2.3; Legge, I:146): Kongzi yue: “Dao zhi yi zheng, qi zhi yi xing, min mian er wuchi. Dao zhi yi de, qi zhi yi li, you chi qie ge.” ⫼⫸㚘烉ˬ⮶ᷳẍ㓧炻滲ᷳẍ↹炻㮹⃵侴䃉」ˤ⮶ᷳẍ⽟炻滲ᷳ ẍ䥖炻㚱」ᶼ㟤ˤ˭“If you lead them [the people] with administrative rules and bring them to unison with punishments, the people will avoid [the punishments], but will have no sense of shame. If you lead them with virtue and bring them to unison with rites, they will have a sense of shame and moreover will be corrected.” A few lines later in the same chapter (ibid.) Sima Qian himself comments: Faling zhe zhi zhi ju, er fei zhi zhi qing zhuo zhi yuan ye. 㱽Ẍ侭㱣ᷳ℟炻侴朆⇞㱣㶭㽩 ᷳ㸸ḇ. “Laws and orders are only the tools of government, but not the source to regulate whether the government is pure or polluted.” Indeed, as Watson (2:373, n. 1) observes, this chapter is intended to be read in tandem with that of the harsh officials (see also Translator’s Note). 20 Wu Shuping ੣⁩ᒣ and Lu Zongli ੲᇇ࣋ [Lü Zongli], eds. and trans., in Quanzhu quanyi Shiji˪‫ޘ⌘ޘ‬䆟ਢ䁈˫(Tianjin: Tianjin Guji ⣑㳍⎌䯵, 1995), 119.3121.

William H. Nienhauser, Jr.

61

㬎≇ᶵ㎂.” One student suggested that the “wen” referred to the laws and orders and “wu” to the “punishments and penalties” from the preceding sentence, a suggestion we all accepted and subsequently noticed was the reading proposed by Takigawa Kametarǀ in his commentary (119.2). 21 The “bei,” we agreed, meant something like “wan bei ⬴⁁” (complete). Although Wu and Lü glossed xun li ⽒ 䎮 de li as “fa li 㱽 䎮 ” (jurisprudence, or legal principles), we felt that “reasonable method” or even “reason” best brought out the anecdotes included in this chapter. We also pondered the lack of any commentary by the Sanjia zhu йᇦ⌘. Did this mean that the passage was clear to all three of the traditional commentators or perhaps that it had been added to the text by someone other than Sima Qian? Left to speculate about that, the passage wound up as follows [119.3099] His Honor the Grand Scribe says: “Laws and orders are that by which one guides the people, punishments and penalties are that by which one prohibits the villainy. Although the civil and military [laws and rules] are not complete, the reason good people will fearfully cultivate themselves is that those in official positions have not yet acted disorderly. As long as [officials] accept the duties of their positions and follow reasonable methods, they can still effect good government. What need is there for threats and severity?” The original passage reads: Taishigong yue: Faling suoyi dao min ye, xingfa suoyi jin jian ye. Wenwu bu bei, liangmin ju ran shen xiu zhe, guan weiceng luan ye. Feng zhi xun li, yi keyi wei zhi, hebi weiyan zai? ⣒⎚℔ 㚘烉㱽Ẍ㇨ẍ⮶㮹ḇ炻↹优㇨ẍ䤩⦎ḇˤ㔯㬎ᶵ⁁炻列㮹ㆤ䃞幓ᾖ侭炻 ⭀㛒㚦Ḫḇˤ⣱借⽒䎮炻Ṏ⎗ẍ䁢㱣炻ỽ⽭⦩♜⑱烎

My draft of Chapter 119 continues: Sun Shu Ao ⬓⍼㓾 was an as yet unemployed scholar of Ch’u. Prime Minister Yü Ch’iu 嘆᷀ recommended him to King Chuang 匲 of Ch’u (r. 613–591) to replace himself. Three months after he had been made Prime Minister of Ch’u, he promulgated teachings so that the common people were guided [properly], those above and those below were in harmony, society prospered and the customs were marvellous, the administration [of the people] was eased and prohibitions [on them] stopped, among the petty officials none were villainous, and bandits and robbers did not rise up. In 21

It is also the reading given by Zhang Dake ⻝⣏⎗ in his Shiji lunzuan jishi˪⎚ 姀婾岲廗慳˫(Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe 昅大Ṣ㮹↢䇰䣦, 1986), 326.

62

Sitting with Sima Qian: Recollections of Translating the Shiji autumn and winter he exhorted the people to go into the mountains to gather [bamboo and wood], in the spring and summer to make use of the waters [to transport the bamboo and wood], so that everyone was able to obtain that which was easy for them and the people all delighted in their lives. Sun Shu Ao zhe, Chu zhi chu shi ye. Yu Qiu xiang jin zhi yu Chu Zhuangwang, yi zi dai ye. San yue wei Chu xiang, shi jiao dao min, shang xia he he, shisu sheng mei, zheng huan jinzhi, li wu jianxie, daozei bu qi. Qiu dong ze quan min shan cai, chun xia yi shui, ge de qi suo bian, min jie le qi sheng. ⬓⍼㓾侭炻㤂ᷳ嗽⢓ḇˤ嘆᷀䚠忚ᷳ㕤㤂匲䌳炻ẍ冒ẋḇˤ ᶱ㚰䁢㤂䚠炻㕥㔁⮶㮹炻ᶲᶳ␴⎰炻ᶾ὿䚃伶炻㓧䶑䤩㬊炻⎷䃉⦎恒炻 䚄屲ᶵ崟ˤ䥳⅔⇯⊠㮹Ⱉ㍉炻㗍⢷ẍ㯜炻⎬⼿℞㇨ὧ炻㮹䘮㦪℞䓇ˤ

A second student read this passage. She pointed out the anecdote cited in the “Zhengyi ↓㗙” commentary and asked if I wanted to include it. I explained that like Qu Yuan ⯰⍇, whom David Hawkes called “a target figure,” many anecdotes had been attached to Sun Shu Ao. I had decided to address these other tales involving him in the Translator’s Note rather than in footnotes. This second student read several lines with no comments until we got to “those above and those below,” which someone pointed out was the same expression (“shang xia ᶲᶳ”) that I translated in Zi Chan’s ⫸䓊 biography later in this chapter as “superiors and subordinates.” We normally try to replicate in our translations similar expressions in the original text, especially if they occur in the same chapter. So “those above and those below” became “superiors and subordinates” here as well. The very next line brought us into contact with that slippery term “su ὿” in the expression “shisu sheng mei.” Wu and Lü (119.3121) translate this line as “minjian fengsu chunhou meihao 㮹攻桐὿㶛⍂伶⤥,” which seems to add too much to “sheng mei” (Hanyu 7:1427a glosses “sheng mei” simply as “meishan 伶┬” (excellent)). After some discussion we came up with “current behaviour and customs rose up to an excellent [level].” The following sentence was also problematic. It reads “zheng huan jinzhi.” My translation was “administration was eased and prohibitions on them stopped,” but it did not make sense to any of us (myself included). Watson, one of the students in our group pointed out, had “though the government was lenient, it was able to prevent evil” (Watson, 2:374). Wu and Lü (119.3121) understood these four graphs as meaning “zhengling kuanhe, fa jin yanming. 㓧Ẍ⮔␴炻㱽䤩♜㖶,” “administrative orders were lenient and legal proscriptions strict and impartial.” While Watson’s “evil” for “zhi 㬊” seemed a stretch, Wu and Lü’s rendition was possible.

William H. Nienhauser, Jr.

63

The Hanyu da cidian˪㻊婆⣏娆℠˫(7:920b–921a) gives several glosses for “jinzhi”: (1) “to cause a cessation of something by means of administrative orders” (from Guan Zi 䭉 ⫸ ), (2) “to restrict the free movement of an impeached official” (Han shu), (3) to stop or prevent (Mo Zi ⡐⫸), and (4) “to make prohibitions simpler,” referring to our passage. The only textual basis I could find for this reading was that of the Japanese scholar Arii Shinsai 㚱ḽ忚滳 (1830–1889), who wrote “the governing of those who follow [reasonable methods], their administration was easygoing, their punishments were simplified.” (“Qi zheng pingyi, qi xing jianyue. ℞㓧⸛㖻炻℞↹䯉䲬.”)22 We moved on with this passage still in question and the original translation still in place. The following lines “Qiu dong ze quan min shan cai, chun xia yi shui, ge de qi suo bian, min jie le qi sheng” literally say only that “in the fall and winter he urged the people to gather in the mountains, in the spring and summer to make use of the waters, so that each was able to obtain that which was easy for them and the people all delighted in their lives.” This passage has teased commentators. A note by Xu Guang ⼸⺋ (352–425), cited in the Jijie˪䳶䀓˫reads “cheng duo shui shi, er chu cai zhu. Ḁ⣂ 㯜㗪炻侴↢㛸䪡,” “they took advantage of the time when the waters were numerous and exported timber and bamboo,” and it was the basis for our translation. This is supported (slightly) by a variant “xia ᶳ” found in a number of editions (cf. Takigawa, 119.3) after “spring and summer”: “chunqiu xia yi shui 㗍䥳ᶳẍ㯜,” “In the spring and summer they sent down [what they had gathered in the mountains] by means of the waterways.” Yet this variant, we agreed, could simply be the result of a scribal emendation based on Xu Guang’s note. One student noted that Takigawa (119.3) notes the modern scholar Li Li’s 㛶䫈 (1894–1962) argument that these are contrasting expressions and should be understood as “in the fall and winter he urged the people to gather [wood] in the mountains, in the spring and summer to make use of the waters [to fish] ....”23 Although this seems to be just another guess at the meaning of these lines, it does tally nicely with what follows: “so that each was able to obtain that which was easy for them.” As we finished up our discussion of this section a student cited Watson’s understanding of this line as “thus 22

Arii Shinsai was the editor of the Shiji pinglin bubiao˪⎚姀姽㜿墄㧁˫. His note on this passage can be found in the scholia on Shiji pinglin (Taipei: Diqiu chubanshe, 1992], 119.1b). 23 Cf. Li Li, Shiji dingbu˪⎚姀妪墄˫, collated by Chen Zhun 昛㸾 (1924 woodblock edition, 8.14b).

64

Sitting with Sima Qian: Recollections of Translating the Shiji

everyone obtained the benefits of his surroundings,” apparently reading “suo ㇨” as “place” or by extension “surroundings,” which seemed to all of us to be an error. For the following paragraph (beginning “King Chuang considered that the coins were too light”), there was no discussion until we got to “The Prime Minister said, ‘That’s the end of it!’” “Xiang yue ‘ba’ 䚠㚘 ‘伟’.” King Chuang considered that the coins were too light and had the small ones changed for larger ones. The families of the hundred cognomens found this inconvenient and they all left their occupations. The Master of the Market spoke of this to the Prime Minister: “The market is in chaos! The people have not settled into their places and the order [of their stalls] is not set.” The Prime Minister said, “How long a time has it been like this?” The master of the market said, “For three months’ time.” The Prime Minister said, “That’s the end of it! I will now rescind the order.” Five days later, when he went to the morning court session, the Prime Minister spoke of this to the King: “On a recent day the coins were changed because they were considered too light. Now the Master of the Market came to me and said that ‘The market is in chaos! The people have not settled into their places and the order [of their stalls] is not set.’ I request that the order after all be restored as it was of old.” The king allowed this, issued the order, and after three days the market was again as of old. 匲䌳ẍ䁢⸋庽炻㚜ẍ⮷䁢⣏炻䘦⥻ᶵὧ炻䘮⍣℞㤕ˤⶪẌ妨ᷳ䚠㚘烉 ˬⶪḪ炻㮹卓⬱℞嗽炻㫉埴ᶵ⭂ˤ˭䚠㚘烉ˬ⤪㬌⸦ỽ枫᷶烎˭ⶪẌ 㚘烉ˬᶱ㚰枫ˤ˭䚠㚘烉ˬ伟炻⏦ṲẌᷳ⽑䞋ˤ˭⼴Ḽ㖍炻㛅炻䚠妨 ᷳ䌳㚘烉ˬ⇵㖍㚜⸋炻ẍ䁢庽ˤṲⶪẌἮ妨㚘ˮⶪḪ炻㮹卓⬱℞嗽炻 㫉埴ᷳᶵ⭂˯ˤ冋婳忪Ẍ⽑⤪㓭ˤ˭䌳姙ᷳ炻ᶳẌᶱ㖍侴ⶪ⽑⤪㓭ˤ

As several students noted, this did not sound like very idiomatic English. We revised it to “Say no more!” Watson (p. 374) and Aoki Gorǀ 䶂ᵘӄ 䛾 (119.466)24 believe it has more the idea of “you are dismissed,” “you may go back now.” Wu and Lü (119.3121) have “no need to be flustered about this” “bubi huangzhang ᶵ⽭ヴ⻝” (from the basic meaning of “ba” as “to dismiss,” it would seem). Then we looked up usages of “yue ba 㚘 伟” in the Shiji (using the Siku database) and found it occurred only one other time, in Chen Ping’s 昛⸛ biography (Shiji, 56.2053). The text there reads “Ping deng qi ren ju jin, ci shi. Wang yue: ‘Ba, jiu she yi.’ ⸛䫱ᶫṢ ᾙ忚炻岄梇ˤ䌳㚘烉ˬ伟炻⯙况䞋ˤ˭” Watson translates “After Chen

24

Shiki ˪⎚姀˫ (Tokyo: Meiji Shoten, 2007), v. 12.

William H. Nienhauser, Jr.

65

Ping and six other guests at the interview had come forward and received gifts of food,25 the king [of Han, Liu Bang] announced, ‘You may return to your lodgings now.’ ” But it seems that more literally the king’s statement was “You are dismissed and may return to your lodgings.” Thus we ended up with “The Prime Minister said, ‘You are dismissed.’ ” The text goes on with: “wu jin ling zhi fu yi ⏦ṲẌᷳ⽑䞋.” My initial translation was “I will now rescind the order.” After reading a bit further in the text, one student points out that my translation was a bit free and that I had not translated the “zhi ᷳ” here. That led to a discussion of what was the object of “fu ⽑,” (to rescind or restore). Since a few lines later Sun Shu Ao says, “Your subject requests that after all they be restored as they were of old,” referring to the coins, we decided that rather than “rescinding the order” Sun Shu Ao was telling the Master of the Market that it was the coins that would be restored. Thus the translation became “I will now have them ordered to be restored.” The third use of “fu ⽑” in this paragraph in the final line, “Wang xu zhi, xialing san ri er shi fu rugu. 䌳 姙 ᷳ 炻 ᶳ Ẍ ᶱ 㖍 侴 ⶪ ⽑ ⤪ 㓭 ,” refers explicitly to the market. Although this made it possible that the main topic in this paragraph was the coins and that unless another object was clearly referred to, the antecedent should be the coins. The paragraph which followed, concerning the low-slung carriages that the people of Ch’u preferred, engendered no discussion regarding my translation. However, the overall methods that Sun Shu Ao employed here to avoid a new regulation led us to reconsider the troublesome passage “zheng huan jinzhi” that we had discussed above. We now settled on the following translation: “once a policy [was enacted] [the problem] would ease, once [something] was prohibited, [the behaviour] would stop.” Although there were some revisions in the final section of Sun Shu Ao’s biography, all but one were minor. The exception was the phrase “three times he [Sun Shu Ao] was dismissed as Prime Minister without regret” “san qu xiang er bu hui ᶱ⍣䚠侴ᶵ〼.” Although our base text has been the second revised edition of the Zhonghua Shiji, one of the students in the group was using a recent reprint of the original 1959 Zhonghua edition and she noted that her text read “wu ὖ” (to be insulted), for “hui 〼” (regret), in the edition. Here we had discovered one of those rare changes that the Zhonghua editors made in subsequent editions (and even separate printings), all with no indications of these minor changes.

25

Probably “conferred a meal” is closer to the original.

66

Sitting with Sima Qian: Recollections of Translating the Shiji

The variant comes from the Mao 㮃 edition,26 as Zhang Wenhu ⻝㔯嗶 (1808–1885) indicates.27 The Jinling 慹昝 edition (119.1b) upon which the Zhonghua edition is based also reads “hui.” The change was presumably made as a result of one of the many critical reviews of the Zhonghua edition published since 1959. Mizusawa notes the variant (119.1), but rejects it.28 Our translation remained “without regret.” Let us move next to the biography of Zi Chan.29 The first item that aroused comment was the line “wei xiang yi nian, shuzi bu xi xia, banbai bu tiqie, tongzi bu li pan. 䁢䚠ᶨ⸜炻寶⫸ᶵ㇚䉶炻㔹䘥ᶵ㍸㊰炻ₖ⫸ ᶵ䈩䓼.” My original translation was “after he had been Prime Minister for one year, young people stopped idling about and being disrespectful, gray-haired elders were no longer seen carrying heavy burdens, and young boys did not plow fields beyond the boundary markers.” The group in general felt that “young people” was not accurate for “寶⫸.” On checking, our glossary had “whelp.” One student suggested “callow fellows” and eventually we wound up with “frivolous fellows.” Perhaps “young pups” would also have worked? For the gray-haired elders no longer carrying burdens, I pointed out the parallel in Meng Zi ⬇⫸: “jin xiang xu zhi jiao, 26

I.e., Mao Jin’s 㮃㗱 (1599–1659) Shiqi shi Shiji jijie ˪⋩ᶫ⎚⎚姀普妋˫. Zhang Wenhu ⻝㔯嗶, Jiaokan Shiji jijie, suoyin, zhengyi zhaji˪㟉↲⎚姀普妋, 䳊晙, 㬋佑㛕姀˫(Beijing: Zhonghua shuju ᷕ厗㚠⯨, 1982) 2:701. 28 The Bona and Palace editions both read “hui 〼.” 29 There is a parallel to most of this biography in Han Shi waizhuan ˪杻娑⢾⁛˫ (3.24, Han Shi waizhuan jinzhu jinyi˪杻娑⢾⁛Ṳ姣Ṳ嬗˫, ed, Lai Yanyuan 岜 䀶⃫ (Rpt. Taipei: Guoli bianyiguan ⚳䩳䶐嬗棐, 1981 (1962)), 136–7: ⬋⬓⫸ᷳ 㱣欗ḇ炻䛦㭢Ṣ炻侴⽭䔞℞伒烊⣂优Ṣ炻侴⽭䔞℞忶ˤ⫸届㚘烉ˬ㙜⑱炰㱣 ᷶炰˭⬋⬓倆ᷳ炻㚘烉ˬ⏦㭢Ṣ炻⽭䔞℞伒烊优Ṣ炻⽭䔞℞忶ˤ⃰䓇ẍ䁢㙜炻 ỽḇ烎˭⫸届㚘烉ˬ⣓⤂ᶵ劍⫸䓊ᷳ㱣惕炻ᶨ⸜侴屈优ᷳ忶䚩炻Ḵ⸜侴↹㭢 ᷳ伒ṉ炻ᶱ⸜侴⹓䃉㊀Ṣˤ㓭㮹㬠ᷳ⤪㯜⯙ᶳ炻ッᷳ⤪⬅⫸㔔䇞㭵ˤ⫸䓊䕭炻 ⮯㬣炻⚳Ṣ䘮⎩▇炻㚘烉ˮ婘⎗ἧẋ⫸䓊㬣侭᷶烎˯⍲℞ᶵ⃵㬣ḇ炻⢓⣏⣓ ⒕ᷳ㕤㛅炻⓮屰⒕ᷳ㕤ⶪ炻彚⣓⒕ᷳ㕤慶ˤ⒕⫸䓊侭䘮⤪╒䇞㭵ˤṲ䩲倆⣓ ⫸䕦ᷳ㗪炻⇯⚳Ṣ╄烊㳣⇯⚳Ṣ䘮榕ˤẍ㬣䚠屨炻ẍ䓇䚠⿸炻朆㙜侴ỽ⑱烎 岄倆ᷳ烉妿㱽侴㱣炻媪ᷳ㙜烊ᶵㆺ农㛇炻媪ᷳ嗸烊ᶵ㔁侴娭炻媪ᷳ屲烊ẍ幓 ⊅Ṣ炻媪ᷳ屔ˤ屔侭⣙幓炻屲侭⣙冋炻嗸侭⣙㓧炻㙜侭⣙㮹ˤᶼ岄倆烉⯭ᶲ ỵ炻埴㬌⚃侭侴ᶵṉ侭炻㛒ᷳ㚱ḇˤ˭㕤㗗⬋⬓䧥椾嫅㚘烉ˬ嫡倆␥䞋ˤ˭ 娑 㚘 烉 ˬ庱 刚庱 䪹 炻 ⋒⾺ Ẳ㔁 ˭; cf. also the translation by James Robert Hightower, Han Shih wai chuan, Han Ying’s Illustrations of the Didactic Application of the Classic of Songs (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1952, 105). 27

William H. Nienhauser, Jr.

67

shen zhi yi xiao ti zhi yi, banbai zhe bu fu dai yu daolu yi. 嫡⹈⸷ᷳ㔁炻 䓛ᷳẍ⬅㡗ᷳ佑炻枺䘥侭ᶵ屈㇜㕤忻嶗䞋.” “Let careful attention be paid to education in schools,–the inculcation of it especially of the filial and fraternal duties, and grey-haired men will not be seen upon the roads, carrying burdens on their backs or on their heads.” 30 But in the last part of this line, “tongzi bu li pan,” also evoked comment. I had rendered it “young boys did not plow fields beyond the boundary markers” following Wu and Lü (119.3122). Watson has simply “young boys did not have to work in the fields” (2:375). But several members of our group thought that “tongzi” here should refer to servant boys. This was Wu and Lü’s interpretation, a reading that also avoided a repetition with “shuzi” above. Thus I adopted “servant boys.” The following line also led to a debate. It reads simply “er nian, shi bu yu gu. Ḵ⸜炻ⶪᶵ尓屰.” The draft translation I had read “After two years no one overcharged in the markets.” Since this is identical to Watson (2:375), I suspect that is where I got it. But I could see that “yu gu” deserved more attention. The “Zhengyi” suggests that this price should not be artificially set in advance. The implication is that it would be artificially high to allow bargaining. One student noted that Wu and Lü’s rendition (119.3122) is “no one would report a false price in order to cheat people” based on their reading of “yu” as “to cheat.” But “yu” simply does not mean that.31 The Hanyu da cidian (10:41a) has two glosses for “yu gu,” but they are similar. The first cites Xun Zi 勨 ⫸ and says that the term means to raise the price beforehand in order to cheat people. But the “cheating people” seems to be an inference from the context, rather than a denotative meaning of “yu.”32 The second refers to this chapter of the Shiji and says that it means simply to raise the price of goods beforehand. My final version was “no one had 30

Meng Tzu, “Liang Hui Wang, shang”˨㠩よ䌳, ᶲ˩, Meng Zi zhengyi, 1:58; translation is that of Legge, 2:149). 31 Although Wang Shumin (119.3230) presents an argument that the parallel in Xun Zi (Ru xiao pian di ba: Zhong Ni jiang wei Sikou, Shenyou shi bu gan zhao yin qi yang, Gongshen shi chu qi qi, Shenkui shi yu jing er xi, Lu zhi yu niu ma zhe bu yu gu. ₺㓰䭯䫔ℓ: ẚ⯤⮯䁢⎠⭯炻㰰䋞㮷ᶵ㔊㛅梚℞伲炻℔ヶ㮷↢℞⥣炻 ヶ㼘㮷巘⠫侴⽁炻欗ᷳ䱍䈃楔侭ᶵ尓屰) suggests that “yu” is in fact similar to “kuang gu 娹屰” (cheat on prices). 32 In support of Wu and Lü’s reading, Wang Niansun’s 䌳⾝⬓ (1744–1817) comments on this line that “尓” is in fact similar to “kuang 娹,” (to cheat, deceive). Wang Shumin (1914–2008); Shiji jiaozheng˪⎚姀㟉㔜˫, 10v. (Taipei: Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, 1982), 9:119.3230 concurs.

68

Sitting with Sima Qian: Recollections of Translating the Shiji

preset prices [that were artificially high] in the markets” with the addition of an alternative translation “no one cheated on prices in the markets” included in a footnote. Our group moved rather smoothly over the rest of Zi Chan to Gongyi Xiu ℔₨ẹ, where the third sentence, “so that those who had received a great deal [of profit] would not be able to take [even a little bit] more” (“shou da zhe bude qu xiao ⍿⣏侭ᶵ⼿⍾⮷”). This followed, as several students pointed out, Wu and Lü’s translation (119.3122). After some discussion, we settled on “Those who have [already] received large [shares of the profit] should not [further] derive small [shares]”33 with a footnote to explain that this is illustrated by Gongyi Xiu’s refusal of the gift of a fish: since he had received the larger benefit of becoming Prime Minister he gives up the smaller benefit of the gift. A few days later, still troubled by this passage, I wrote to the group for suggestions and received two detailed responses from members of the group. The first wrote: I found a passage from Dong Zhongshu’s 吋ẚ冺 (179 B.C.–104 B.C.) “Yuanguang yuannian ju Xianliang duice”˨⃫⃱⃫⸜冱岊列⮵䫾˩, which by and large supports my understanding. My rough translation follows: “As for Heaven, it also has [its way to] distribute and give. From those which are given the teeth, [Heaven] takes off their horns. From those which are given the wings, [the Heaven] makes them have [only] two legs. This is ‘who have received the large should not take the small.’ In the ancient times, those who were given government salaries did not feed themselves by muscular labor, nor did they work in industry and commerce. This is also ‘who have received the big should not take the small,’ and this agrees with the Heaven’s will. If one has already received the large, and further takes the small, Heaven cannot satisfy this, let alone human beings. This is the reason why common people all complain about their suffering 33

Or alternately “so that those who had received a great deal [of profit] would not be able to take [even a little bit] more” which follows Wu and Lü’s translation (119.3122). Watson is more colourful (2:375): “He stopped men who were receiving government salaries from scrambling for profit in competition with the common people and prevented those on generous stipends from accepting petty gifts and bribes,” as usual weaving the connotations—and his own interpretations—into the text. Here, it seems that “bribes” may be going a bit far. Zhang Dake’s ⻝⣏⎗ translation is also amplified: “Shi guan feng de ren bude jian ying shangye yu min zheng li, guanli you jianzhi zhe bude jian shen, zhi qu gao feng de yi zhi zhi shen. 梇⭀ᾠ䘬Ṣᶵ⼿ℤ䆇⓮㤕冯㮹䇕⇑炻⭀⎷㚱ℤ借侭 ᶵ⼿ℤ啒炻⎒⍾檀ᾠ䘬ᶨ借ᷳ啒.”

William H. Nienhauser, Jr.

69

in the insufficiency. People who are themselves [politically] favored and take the high positions, and their families kept warm and fed on generous salaries, then take advantage of their wealth and honor to fight over profits with common people in lower class. How could common people follow them?!” ⣓⣑Ṏ㚱㇨↮ḰˤḰᷳ滺侭⍣℞奺炻‭℞侤侭ℑ℞嵛ˤ㗗㇨⍿⣏侭炻 ᶵ⼿⍾⮷ḇˤ⎌ᷳ㇨Ḱ䤧侭炻ᶵ梇Ḷ≃炻ᶵ≽Ḷ㛓炻㗗Ṏ⍿⣏侭ᶵ⼿ ⍾⮷炻冯⣑⎴シ侭ḇˤ⣓⶙⍿⣏炻⍰⍾⮷炻⣑ᶵ傥嵛炻侴㱩Ṣ嗾烎㬌 㮹ᷳ㇨ẍ♪♪劎ᶵ嵛ḇˤ幓⮝侴庱檀ỵ炻⭞㹓侴梇⍂䤧炻⚈Ḁ⭴屜ᷳ 屯≃炻ẍ冯㮹䇕⇑Ḷᶳ炻㮹⬱傥⤪ᷳ⑱烎34

The second read: I just checked and found that the paragraph you found is also seen in “Dong Zongshu zhuan” of Han shu (Han shu, juan 56) (Just for my curiosity, did Yan tell us what his source is?) But what interests me more is that in this Han shu memoir, Dong Zhongshu brought up another interesting anecdote of Gongyi Xiu ℔ ₨ ẹ , which seems to me demonstrates the point of [“shi lu zhe bude yu xia min zheng li, shou da zhe bude qu xiao.] 梇䤧侭ᶵ⼿冯ᶳ㮹䇕⇑炻⍿⣏侭ᶵ⼿⍾⮷.” The anecdote is roughly translated as below: In the past when Gongyi zi was serving as the prime minister of Lu, he once went back home and found people weaving. He was enraged and divorced his wife. While he was eating in his chamber, he found kui (well, I guess it could be some vegetable, I will have to check), he was angry and pull the plan out, saying, “I have already be fed with governmental salaries, [how could I] further derive the benefit of gardeners and weaving women!” 㓭℔₨⫸䚠欗炻ᷳ℞⭞夳䷼ⷃ炻⾺侴↢℞⥣炻梇㕤况侴勡吝炻ヵ侴㉼ ℞吝炻㚘烉“⏦⶚梇䤧炻⍰⤒⚺⣓䲭⤛⇑᷶炰”35

According to Wu and Lü (119.3119n.) “kui” is “dongkui,” (cluster mallow fruit or malva verticilatta). It is a leaf vegetable, also known as “Chinese mallow,” that was an important early vegetable in early societies East and West. Horace mentions it in reference to his own diet, which he describes as very simple: “Me pascunt olivae, me cichorea, me malvae” (“As for me,

34

Yan Kejun ♜⎗⛯ (1762–1843), ed., Quan Shanggu Sandai Qin Han Sanguo Liuchao wen ˪ ℐ ᶲ ⎌ ᶱ ẋ 䦎 㻊 ᶱ ⚳ ℕ 㛅 㔯 ˫ (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company ᷕ厗㚠⯨, 1991), 23. 254a. 35 Han shu˪㻊㚠˫, 56.2521.

70

Sitting with Sima Qian: Recollections of Translating the Shiji

olives, endives, and mallows provide sustenance”; Horace, Odes 31, vers. 15, ca. 30 B.C.) A parallel passage in the Han Shi waizhuan (Ch. 3): may come from a similar source, although it places the narrative in a slightly different context: ℔₨ẹ䚠欗侴▄欂炻ᶨ⚳Ṣ䌣欂侴ᶵ⍿ˤ℞⻇㚘烉ˬ▄欂ᶵ⍿炻ỽ ḇ烎˭㚘烉ˬ⣓㫚▄欂炻㓭ᶵ⍿ḇˤ⍿欂侴⃵㕤䚠炻⇯ᶵ傥冒䴎欂烊 䃉⍿侴ᶵ⃵㕤䚠炻攟冒䴎㕤欂ˤ˭㬌㖶㕤䁢⶙侭ḇˤ㓭侩⫸㚘烉ˬ⼴ ℞幓侴幓⃰炻⢾℞幓侴幓⬀ˤ朆ẍ℞䃉䥩᷶烎㓭傥ㆸ℞䥩ˤ˭娑㚘烉 ˬ⿅䃉恒ˤ˭㬌ᷳ媪ḇˤ36 Gongyi Xiu, Prime Minister of Lu, was fond of fish. A native of the state made him a present of fish, but he would not accept it. His younger brother objected saying, “You are fond of fish; why do you not accept it? He said, “It is [precisely] because I am so fond of fish that I do not accept it. If I accept the fish and lose my place as Prime Minister, I will then be unable to supply myself with fish. By not accepting and not losing my place as Prime Minister, I will long be able to supply myself with fish. In this matter I understand how to take care of myself.” Truly, as Lao Zi said, “Make yourself last and you will be first; put yourself outside, and you will be preserved. Is it not that he had no eye to personal advantage, and was just in this way able to accomplish his personal advantage?” The Ode says, “His thoughts are without depravity.” This is illustrated in the above.37

I hope these examples can suggest how our group works. There seems no need to report on our discussion of the biographies of Shi She 䞛⤊ and Li Li 㛶暊, since they presented fewer problems. These biographies, did, however, suggested problems suitable for a Translator’s Note.

36

There are two other parallel passages:˪㶖⋿⫸Ʉ忻ㅱ妻˫烉ˬ℔₨ẹ䚠欗侴 ▄欂炻ᶨ⚳䌣欂炻℔₨⫸⺿⍿ˤ℞⻇⫸媓㚘烉ˮ⣓⫸▄欂炻 ⺿⍿炻ỽḇ烎˯ 䫼㚘烉ˮ⣓ⓗ▄欂炻㓭⺿⍿ˤ⣓⍿欂侴⃵㕤䚠炻晾▄欂炻ᶵ傥冒䴎欂烊㭳⍿ 欂侴ᶵ⃵㕤䚠炻⇯傥攟冒䴎欂ˤ˯˭ Han Fei Zi ˪杻朆⫸˫: ℔₨ẹ䚠欗侴▄欂炻ᶨ⚳䚉悥䇕屟欂侴䌣ᷳ炻℔₨⫸ ℔₨⫸炻⮵℔₨ẹ䘬㔔䧙ᶵ⍿ˤ℞⻇媓㚘烉ˬ⣓⫸▄欂侴ᶵ⍿侭炻ỽḇ烎˭ ⮵㚘烉ˬ⣓ⓗ▄欂炻㓭ᶵ⍿ḇˤ⣓⌛`⤪⍿欂炻⽭㚱 Ƀ˭ 37 Translation from Hightower, Han Shih wai chuan, 99–100.

William H. Nienhauser, Jr.

71

[IV] The Future of the Project: Sitting in the Garden In Madison today there are more than a dozen students working in the Shiji Group. We have draft translations of Chapters 41, 42, 43, and 45 and are working on 44, 46 and 47—the contents of a projected volume 5.2. At the same time there is a new German group led by Hans van Ess that will meet with Tom Noel, one of the graduate students in our current Madison Shiji group, and me in Munich from May through early July this year in 2013. This new group, which consists of several German and Russian scholars, will work with the Madison contingent towards translations of Chapters 113–121, a future volume 10. It may involve at least one trip to the Biergarten in the famous English Gardens of Munich. Thereafter, who knows? Perhaps it will be time for me to sit in my own garden and for Sima Qian to find another translator.

72

Sitting with Sima Qian: Recollections of Translating the Shiji

Appendix I: Working Glossary (11 April 2011) A ai ⑨ ai ッ an ⬱ an 㟰 an ping 㟰ℝ ao ⩤

C cha 姸 cha-wei 姸‥ ch’a ⮇ chan tao 㢏忻

v./adj./n. to mourn, grieve, lament, pity; mournful, grieving, pitiful; pity love, cherish, take good care of, favour (≈よ), have regard for, admire n. peace of mind to restrain to restrain the troops (SC 4, 40, 70 and 114) Mother (term of address) preceded by surname; used for palace women, not formal title (5 women so designated SC: Ch 8, 43, 111)

n. deception; see also mou 媨 deceitful and treacherous; deceptions and frauds examine n. plank roadways / roads (built along mountain sides of planks of wood supported against steep slopes by wooden piles/So-yin, SC, 8.367 chan ㇘ n. battle; v. to fight; attack yü-chan 冯㇘ v. to give battle to chan 㕔 cut off the head, decapitate; cut down; Hulsewe: behead on the spot chan-shou 㕔椾# to cut off # heads chan-shih 娡ḳ steward chan ⌈ n. oracle; v. to divine, interpret an oracle (w/ 㚘: as reading) ch’an 䥒 to yield (a position); yield chang 晄 fort chang 䪈 rules chang 攟 officials of third rank; chief, head chang 攟 [military] chief [of a commandery, title used in areas controlled by Hsiang Yü during the Ch’in-Han interregnum] chang-che 攟侭 a man of honor, honorable man; a worthy man (Watson); a humane man (Schaberg), a (or chang-che 攟侭) man of inner strengths; elder (SC 107) chang kung-chu Senior Princess; indicates a princess, often sister 攟℔ᷣ of an emperor or daughter of an empress, who is receives a fief; = ta chang kung-chu chang-shih 攟⎚ head scribe

William H. Nienhauser, Jr. .

Ch’ang-an shih-ch’ang 攟⬱⶧⟜ chiefs of the four markets of Ch’ang-an chang-ku ㌴㓭 authority on precedents (master of precedents) chang-sai wei 晄⠆⮱ commandants of fortifications ch’ang-shih chi horsemen in regular attendance (Hucker, 264)– ⷠἵ榶 Mounted Attendant-in-ordinary, Han) chao ㊃ vt. to summon chao 姼 n. decree, edict; feng-chao ⣱姼 ch’ao 㛅 pay homage to [a ruler], pay one’s respects at the court of [a state], “to appear in court” (Legge 5:30) che ㉀ v. to break che 庺 at once ch’e 㑌 withdraw, retreat chen 㚽 lit., the secluded one; “I,” “We” chen-chung 㚽䛦 Receiver of Remonstrances chen 捖 v. to guard, keep in order chen mu 䜳䚖 glare at chen-yü 㚽嘆 Game Warden ch’en 冋 n. vassal (pre-Ch’in), male servant, minister, official, subject; yr servant ch’en-ch’ieh 冋⥦ (male and female) slaves cheng 㬋 head/principal officer; upright; rectitude cheng ch’ing 㬋⌧ principal excellency cheng-yüeh 㬋㚰 the annuary month cheng fu-jen 㬋⣓ principle wife cheng tu 㬋⹎ n. primes and standards cheng ⼩ (to lead) a punitive expedition (see also fa Ẹ) cheng 㓧 government; the reins of government wei cheng 䁢㓧 to administrate the government, to govern, to administrate t’ing cheng 倥㓧 to preside over the government (4.142) cheng ⽝ call in, summon Cheng-ts’ang shih ⽝啷⎚ Scribe of Acquisition and Collection cheng 䇕 contend, struggle, vie, dispute, argue over cheng chang 䇕攟 to contend/vie for priority cheng ch'iang 䇕⻟ to contend for power cheng 䇕 v. to dispute, argue over ch’eng 婈 n./adj./adv. 䂆 incerity, sincere, sincerely, really ch’eng 䧙 v. to call, declare

73

74

Sitting with Sima Qian: Recollections of Translating the Shiji

ch’eng chih 䧙⇞ ch’eng 婈 ch’eng ㆸ ch’eng ❶ ch’eng-tan ❶㖎

v.o. to cause [orders] to be called decrees? n./adj./adv. sincerity, sincere, sincerely, really successful (adj.) complete, finish (verb) walled city; city wall; to wall a city a form of penal servitude; city wall labourers (sometimes paired with tattooing) ch’eng ᷆ official of the third rank; assistant ch’eng 䧙 to speak of, be spoken of, call; (may be praise. Fame or denigration); n. appelations ch’eng chih 䧙⇞ v.o. to cause [orders] to be called decrees ch’eng-hsiang ᷆䚠 chancellor; ch’eng Ḁ to ride (carriage, chariot) ch’eng chuan Ḁ⁛ post relay carriage chi 䲨 records; to record, chronicle chi 䕦 to loathe, detest; disease, illness chi 妰 to plan, lay plans, calculate, consider; n. plan; cf mou 媨 chi-hsiang 妰䚠 statistical assistant chi-li 妰⎷ officer in charge of statistics chi ㇇ halberd (combination axe and spear) chi/yi ⦔ beauty, belle (general term for women; cf. SC 3011 “Chichieh”); “Madame X” (title followed by surname); in early usage the Chou royal cognomen; later = consort, concubine (2nd wife), cf. SC 1997; (Ju Ch’un, SC, 9.395 says this graph is pronounced yi ⿉ when referring to the title) chi 㑲 assault, to strike at, to deliver an attack, to hurl (troops); otherwise, “attack” (Giles, 112); antonym = ⬰ chi ⿍ crisis, emergency; furious, rash, urgent, impetuous (Han yu 7:453–4) chi chi ⿍㑲 to attack fiercely, furiously chi 榶 horseman; cavalry, horse soldier. See also chi-shih 榶⢓. chi 嫷 criticize; attack; criticize chi 㭃 to die; to execute chi ⍲ and when, when; reach, touch, encounter; until, reaching to; as well as; chi + verb—about to; introducing new subject in second clause—but chi nan ⍲暋 encounter calamity or disaster chi shen ⍲幓 (often following huo 䤵): (disaster) would touch him, would befall him chi ⌛ immediately, forthwith; then chi wei ⌛ỵ ascend throne; ascend to/took power, assume position (feudal lords) reign

William H. Nienhauser, Jr. chi 㖊 chi erh 㖊侴 chi 䧥 chi-ch’iao ㈨ⶏ Chi-chiu 䤕惺 chi-shih 䴎ḳ chi-shih 姀⭌ chi-shih 榶⢓ chi-shih chung-kung lang 䴎ḳᷕ⭖恶 chi-shu ⶙会 chi-ts’ao 普㚡 ch’i hou ℞⼴ ch’i ㇂ ch’i 㲋 ch’i 崟 ch’i 㢚 ch’i 㡬 ch’i 䵢 ch’i 㫢 ch’i 㯋 ch’i-ping ⣯ℝ ch’i-men 㛇攨 chia ` chia ⭞ chia jen ⭞Ṣ

chia-jen tzu ⭞Ṣ⫸ chia 䓚 chia ▱ chia `

75

already after some time investigate, resolves (SC 38) skilled technicians or craftsmen Libationer on temporary duty office of records cavalryman; cavalry gentlemen on temporary duty in the empress dowager’s palace the sixth office; office number six; office of data collection after this, thereafter sorrow, woe; closely related weep raise, mobilize to trap (on a mountain, etc.) to abandon (an ally etc.) betrayal white damask (Schaefer) to cheat (in business or a transaction), to trick (in battle); to deceive (a superior). emanations; airs, ethers; manner, demeanor; energy, (vital) force, anima surprise troops, surprise attack; ambushing soldiers, ambuscaders gate attendant; warder of the gate; acting household; family commoner (registered commoner often); man of the family/household often in connection with social codes: 52.1999: 䥖⤪⭞Ṣ nobles are 怟 to be ⭞Ṣ because of some offense (33.1547, 39.1687) 99.2712: 侴⍾⭞Ṣ⫸⎵䁢攟℔ᷣ炻 ⥣╖Ḷ; also a person of the household? indicating a servant see Ch’in Han shih, p. 378 gloss ₖ⁽ Han yü ta-tzu tien (3:1459) : (1) the daughter or son of a commoner? (the reference is to SC 102); (2) a woman of the palace without title or rank (reference to the preface of the Wai-ch’i chuan in the Han shu). armoured troops to praise; felicitous acting; to avail of, borrow, use

Sitting with Sima Qian: Recollections of Translating the Shiji

76

chia tao `忻 chia-hsiang `䚠 Chia-shou `⬰ chia-tsu 䓚⋺ Chiang 㰇

to use a road, to borrow the use of a road acting prime minister, chief minister Acting Governor armored infantry The Chiang River or the River, instead of Yangtze

Appendix II: Style Sheet (Updated to early 2011) (1) Numbers: Numbers from 21 to 99 are hyphenated i.e., twenty-one

forty-five

ninety-nine

Numbers above one hundred are not: two thousand Numbers which require three words or more should be written with Arabic numerals (and this extends then to ALL NUMBERS in the affected paragraph): e.g., Babe Ruth hit 714 home runs in his career in the big leagues, a record Henry Aaron broke. His mark of 60 in one season has also been broken, most recently by Mark McGuire who hit 70 in 1999. The Chicago Manual of Style (p. 312, section 8.70) suggests the following way of giving page or other numbers: 3–10 71–2 96–117 100–4

600–13 1100–23 107–8 505–17

1002–6 321–5 321–35 505–600

(2) Use ibid. not Ibid. or Ibid.

415–532 1536–42 1496–504 14235–8

11564–78 13729–803

William H. Nienhauser, Jr.

77

(3) When you cite a Chinese text (complete or excerpt) in footnotes, use Chinese characters first (unless the quotation is too long or from an easily accessible text), then provide a translation in quotation marks, not parentheses. (4) The commentary at the end of your chapters is a “Translator’s Note.” Not Translators’ Note or Translator’s Notes. (5) We are using “on” to refer to a particular page in the Shih chi, Han shu or other book. If you refer to more than one page, we are still using “on” as in: “his biography appears on Shih chi, 131.5000–1. For more than a few pages, I suppose in is better: “see the edict on Han shu, 3.100–10.” (6) In appositions with title and name, we normally give “Name, title, etc.” As in “Chou Po, the Grand Commandant.” This regardless of whether Chou Po precedes “The Grand Commandant” in the original. Some exceptions possible. (7) Normally put “see such and such a book” in parentheses at the end of the sentence as in “Pan Ku felt this was nonsense” (see Han shu, 101.5000). Not “Pan Ku felt this was nonsense.” See Han shu, 101.5000. Another form: “In the Han shu (101.5000) we are told ....” (8) Place names. If a place name seems to call to be translated (Pa-shang, “Pa Heights”), please feel free to give your translation. The form should always be: Pa-shang 䀆ᶲ (Pa Heights). Ditto for marquis titles, etc. Translation is in brackets and appears only once. Thereafter, refer to the place only by “Pa-shang,” not “Pa Heights.” The principle here is the translation may not be correct and will only be offered once. For giving locations in notes. The general format should provide information from T’an Ch’i-hsiang on where the place is, based on T’an’s maps, with a further reference to a nearby major city. Thus “Kaifeng is located about five miles west modern Kaifeng in Honan

78

Sitting with Sima Qian: Recollections of Translating the Shiji

(T’an Ch’i-hsiang, 2:28)” AND “P’ei is located a few miles south of modern P’ei County in Kiangsu, about thirty miles northwest of Hsuchow (T’an Ch’i-hsiang, 2:17).” Give only the page the place is located—2:17, not 2:17–18. Give the volume and page in T’an as follows: “T’an Ch’i-hsiang, 2:21.” Give this at the end of your location reference in parentheses or in some cases with the volume and pages in parentheses: e.g., “T’an Ch’i-hsiang (2:28) locates this county ..., but Ch’ien Mu etc.” No need to mention that Szechwan is a “province” in your note. Don’t use “present-day” or “nowadays” for modern places. Just use “modern,” please: “near modern Tsining in Shantung.” A copy of Wade-Gile’s placenames (actually the British Postal System names) will be appended to this style sheet. Please use those romanizations (Kiangsu, Szechwan, etc.). (9) In citing Legge and Chavannes, give volume and page (4:128). No space after “4:”. (10) It seems we are normally using a comma after journal titles as in Shang-hai Shih-yüan hsüeh-pao, 1982.3: 94–7.” (11) For Shih ching references use “Mao #29 (Legge, 4:137).” Previously we had been using “Mao #29; Legge, 4:137,” but we seem to have evolved into the parenthetical style. (12) Spell out mileage in notes (twenty not 20). When you write “about so-and-so many miles,” use approximate figures (NOT “approximately 22 miles”). (13) Please check the List of Abbreviated Titles for things like “Loewe, Dicitonary, p. xx). I’ll hand out an updated version next meeting. (14) Cite Takigawa according to original page number—this number begins at “1” for each chapter (e.g., Takigawa, 62.5). (15) Tso chuan citations are always to Yang Po-chün’s edition and take the form:

William H. Nienhauser, Jr.

79

As found in the Tso chuan (Yang, Tso, Cheng 12, p. 678). (16) Titles of lords, kinds, marquises, etc. Although there have been some exceptions, we normally give the romanized title: Hsin-te Chün, then CHINESE CHARACTERS, then the translation in parentheses: Hsin-te Chün ᾉ⽟⏃ (Lord who Trusts in Virtue). As with place names (see #8 above) we then refer to the person thereafter by the romanized title only (NOT the translation). Also please capitalize “King,” “Lord,” etc. when connected to a place name as in “King of Ch’u, Magistrate of P’ei.” It is true (some of the exceptions) we use Magistrate of P’ei, King of Han, etc., in contrast to “Kao-tsu.” Perhaps these “conventions” will have to remain outside the rule. OR???? (17) Official titles. For Han chapters we are using Bielenstein as much as possible. When using Bielenstein, simply translate the title (no footnote needed). When something isn’t in Bielenstein, then give a footnote and simply give romanized version of the title (usually capitalized and italicized) with Chinese. For example: Yü-li CHINESE. (18) If you provide a note for a person about whom we know little or nothing, just write a note to read: “Otherwise unknown.” (19) Hsien / xian = county. Hsiang / xiang = district. Chün / jun = commandery. Li = hamlet. (20) Punctuation. Keep footnotes and all quotation marks (single and double) outside commas, periods, questions marks, and exclamation marks, but inside other punctuation marks: “… and then you, Sir, will reach greatness.” “He said, ‘You will then reach greatness.’” “He asked, ‘Will you then reach greatness?’”

Sitting with Sima Qian: Recollections of Translating the Shiji

80

“He said, ‘You will then reach greatness’”; (21) Romanization. Standard Wade-Giles except for yi (instead of i). (22) Citing parallel texts in the notes (Han shu, Tso chuan, etc.). Please give the original text and your translation following that when you cite original texts. If the citation is four characters or less (in other words, a phrase), put in this form: romanization CHINESE “translation.” In general, romanize all Chinese expressions four words or less. (23) Need list of references to means of addresses superiors (this is coming): Ta-wang, Chün, Kung, etc. (24) Other abbreviations (also given in the Frontmatter to each volume; N.B., this list is more complete): adj. adv. ArC cf. ed. m. mss. n. no. n.p. nn. pn. rev. ed. rpt. sv. trans. transl. v. vi. v.o. vp. vt.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

adjective adverb Archaic Chinese confer, compare editor measure word manuscript note; noun number noun phrase notes proper noun revised edition reprint stative verb translator translation volume; verb intransitive verb verb–object verb phrase transitive verb

William H. Nienhauser, Jr.

Postal Names (after Fenn’s 5000 Dictionary) Anhwei Canton (Guangzhou) Chahar (⮇⑰䇦) Ch’angch’un (Changchun) Chekiang Chengchow Chihli (䚜晠) Ch’inghai or Kokonor (Qinghai) Chungking (Chongqing) Foochow Fukien Hangchow Hankow Harbin Hopei or Hopeh (Hebei) Honan Hong Kong (Xianggang) Hsiamen or Amoy (Xiamen) Hupei Inner Mongolia (Nei Menggu) Jehol (Rehe 䅙㱛) K’aifeng (Kaifeng) Kansu Kiangsu Kiangsi Kirin or Chilin (Jilin) K’unming Kwangtung Kwangsi Kweichow Kweilin Kweiyang Lanchow Liaopei or Liaopeh (怤⊿) Loyang (Luoyang) Macao (Aumen) Mongolia (Menggu) Nanking Peking

81

82

Sitting with Sima Qian: Recollections of Translating the Shiji

Shanghai Shantung Shansi (Ⱉ大) Shensi (昄大) Shenyang/Mukden (Shenyang) Sian (大⬱) Sinkiang (Xinjiang) Soochow Suiyuan (䴷怈) Szechwan T’aiyüan sometimes T’aiyuan Tientsin (Tianjin) Tsinan 㾇⋿ Tsingtao (Qingdao) Wuhan Yangtze River Yellow River Yünnan

Appendix III: Draft Translation of Shiji Chapter 119 The Officials Who Follow [Reasonable Methods], Memoir 59 [119.3099] His Honor the Grand Scribe says, “Laws and orders are that by which one guides the people, punishments and penalties are that by which one prohibits villainy. Although the civil and military [laws (or rule?)] are not complete, the reason good people will fearfully cultivate themselves is that those in official positions have not yet acted disorderly. As long [officials] accept the duties of their positions and follow reasonable methods, they can still effect good government. What need is there for threats and severity? ⣒⎚℔㚘烉 㱽Ẍ㇨ẍ⮶㮹ḇ炻↹优㇨ẍ䤩⦎ḇˤ㔯㬎ᶵ⁁炻列㮹 ㆤ䃞幓ᾖ侭炻⭀㛒㚦Ḫḇˤ⣱借⽒䎮炻Ṏ⎗ẍ䁢㱣炻ỽ⽭⦩♜⑱烎 Sun Shu Ao Sun Shu Ao ⬓⍼㓾 was an as yet unemployed scholar of Ch’u. Prime Minister Yü Ch’iu 嘆᷀ recommended him to King Chuang 匲 of Ch’u (r. 613–591) to replace himself. Three months after he had been made Prime Minister of Ch’u, he promulgated teachings so that the common people were guided [properly], those above and those below were in harmony, society prospered and the customs were marvellous, the administration [of

William H. Nienhauser, Jr.

83

the people] was eased and prohibitions [on them] stopped, among the petty officials none were villainous, and bandits and robbers did not rise up. In autumn and winter he exhorted the people to go into the mountains to gather [bamboo and wood], in the spring and summer to make use of the waters [to transport the bamboo and wood], so that everyone was able to obtain that which was easy for them and the people all delighted in their lives. ⬓⍼㓾侭炻㤂ᷳ嗽⢓ḇˤ嘆᷀䚠忚ᷳ㕤㤂匲䌳炻ẍ冒ẋḇˤᶱ㚰 䁢㤂䚠炻㕥㔁⮶㮹炻ᶲᶳ␴⎰炻ᶾ὿䚃伶炻㓧䶑䤩㬊炻⎷䃉⦎恒炻䚄 屲ᶵ崟ˤ䥳⅔⇯⊠㮹Ⱉ㍉炻㗍⢷ẍ㯜炻⎬⼿℞㇨ὧ炻㮹䘮㦪℞䓇ˤ [3100] King Chuang considered that the coins were too light and had the small ones changed for larger ones. The families of the hundred cognomens found this inconvenient and they all left their occupations. The Master of the Market spoke of this to the Prime Minister: “The market is in chaos! The people have not settled into their places and the order [of their stalls] is not set.” The Prime Minister said, “How long a time has it been like this?” The master of the market said, “For three months’ time.” The prime minister said, “That’s the end of it! I will now rescind the order.” Five days later, when he went to the morning court session, the Prime Minister spoke of this to the King: “On a recent day the coins were changed because they were considered too light. Now the Master of the Market came to me and said that //or “explained that”// ‘The market is in chaos! The people have not settled into their places and the order [of their stalls] is not set.’ I request that the order after all be restored as it was of old.” The king allowed this, issued the order, and after three days the market was again was it was of old. 匲䌳ẍ䁢⸋庽炻㚜ẍ⮷䁢⣏炻䘦⥻ᶵὧ炻䘮⍣℞㤕ˤⶪẌ妨ᷳ䚠 㚘烉ˬⶪḪ炻㮹卓⬱℞嗽炻㫉埴ᶵ⭂ˤ˭䚠㚘烉ˬ⤪㬌⸦ỽ枫᷶烎˭ ⶪẌ㚘烉ˬᶱ㚰枫ˤ˭䚠㚘烉ˬ伟炻⏦ṲẌᷳ⽑䞋ˤ˭⎶Ḽ㖍炻㛅炻 䚠妨ᷳ䌳㚘烉ˬ⇵㖍㚜⸋炻ẍ䁢庽ˤṲⶪẌἮ妨㚘ˮⶪḪ炻㮹卓⬱℞ 嗽炻㫉埴ᷳᶵ⭂˯ˤ冋婳忪Ẍ⽑⤪㓭ˤ˭䌳姙ᷳ炻ᶳẌᶱ㖍侴ⶪ⽑⤪ 㓭ˤ The people of Ch’u were by custom fond of low-slung carriages, but the King did not think low carriages were convenient for the horses and wanted to issue an order to make [the carriages] higher. The Prime Minister said, “If orders are issues too frequently, the people won’t know which to follow, and this would not be good. If Your Majesty would raise the carriages, I request that you instruct that the village gates have their

84

Sitting with Sima Qian: Recollections of Translating the Shiji

sills raised. Those who ride in carriages are all gentlemen and a gentleman cannot be getting down from his carriage so often.” The king consented to this and, within half a year, the people had of their own accord raised their carriages. 㤂㮹὿⤥⹛干炻䌳ẍ䁢⹛干ᶵὧ楔炻㫚ᶳẌἧ檀ᷳˤ䚠㚘烉ˬẌ 㔠ᶳ炻㮹ᶵ䞍㇨⽆炻ᶵ⎗ˤ䌳⽭㫚檀干炻冋婳㔁敕慴ἧ檀℞㡙ˤḀ干 侭䘮⏃⫸炻⏃⫸ᶵ傥㔠ᶳ干ˤ˭䌳姙ᷳˤ⯭⋲㬚炻㮹〱冒檀℞干ˤ In this way, without instructing them, the people were made to follow the king’s influence, those who were near observing and imitating [Sun], those who were distant looking up to him from the four directions and taking him as their model. Therefore, he was able to become prime minister three times without joy, because he understand it was merely the result of his natural talents; and three times he was dismissed from the position without regret, because he knew it was not due to his own faults. [3101] 㬌ᶵ㔁侴㮹⽆℞⊾炻役侭夾侴㓰ᷳ炻怈侭⚃朊㛃侴㱽ᷳˤ㓭ᶱ⼿ 䚠侴ᶵ╄炻䞍℞㛸冒⼿ᷳḇ烊ᶱ⍣䚠侴ᶵ〼炻䞍朆⶙ᷳ伒ḇˤ Tzu Ch’an Tzu Ch’an ⫸䓋 (d. 522 B.C.) was a Ranking Grand Master of Cheng. During the reign of Lord Chao of Cheng 惕㗕⏃ (r. 696–695 B.C.), because he used his favourite, Hsü Chih ⼸, as Prime Minister, the country became chaotic. Superiors were not close to their subordinates, and fathers were not on good terms with sons. ⫸䓊侭炻惕ᷳ↿⣏⣓ḇˤ惕㗕⏃ᷳ㗪炻ẍ㇨ッ⼸㐗䁢䚠炻⚳Ḫ炻 ᶲᶳᶵ奒炻䇞⫸ᶵ␴ˤ Ta-kung Tzu-ch’i ⣏⭖⫸㛇 spoke to the lord and he made Tzu Ch’an Prime Minister. After he had been Prime Minister for a year, young people stopped idling about and being disrespectful, gray-haired elders were no longer seen carrying heavy burdens, and young boys did not plow fields beyond the boundary markers. After two years, no one overcharged in the markets. After three years, people stopped locking their gates at night and no one ventured to pick up articles that had been left along the roadside. After four years, people did not bother to take home their farm tools when the day’s work was finished, and after five years, no more conscription orders were sent out to the servicemen and the periods of mourning were observed by people without having been ordered to do so. After he ruled Cheng for twenty-six years, he died and the able-bodied men wailed and

William H. Nienhauser, Jr.

85

wept, the old cried like children, saying “Tzu Ch’an has died and left us! To whom can we turn now!?” ⣏⭖⫸㛇妨ᷳ⏃炻ẍ⫸䓊䁢䚠ˤ䁢䚠ᶨ⸜炻寶⫸ᶵ㇚䉶炻㔹䘥ᶵ ㍸㊰炻ₖ⫸ᶵ䈩䓼ˤḴ⸜炻ⶪᶵ尓屰ˤᶱ⸜炻攨ᶵ⣄斄炻忻ᶵ㊦怢ˤ ⚃⸜炻䓘☐ᶵ㬠ˤḼ⸜炻⢓䃉⯢䯵炻╒㛇ᶵẌ侴㱣ˤ㱣惕Ḵ⋩ℕ⸜侴 㬣炻ᶩ⢗嘇⒕炻侩Ṣ⃺┤炻㚘烉ˬ⫸䓊⍣ㆹ㬣᷶炰㮹⮯⬱㬠烎˭ Kung-yi Hsiu Kung-yi Xiu ℔₨ẹ was an academician of Lu. Because of his high estate, he was made Prime Minister of Lu. In carrying out the laws he followed reason, not making changes in them without a need, so that all the officials under him were naturally upright. He caused those on government salaries to stop contending for profit with the common people and those who received high salaries to stop taking from those with low ones. ℔₨ẹ侭炻欗⌂⢓ḇˤẍ檀⻇䁢欗䚠ˤ⣱㱽⽒䎮炻䃉㇨嬲㚜炻䘦 ⭀冒㬋ˤἧ梇䤧侭ᶵ⼿冯ᶳ㮹䇕⇑炻⍿⣏侭ᶵ⼿⍾⮷ˤ [3102] A retainer once sent him a fish, but the prime minister did not accept it. The retainer said, “I heard that you were fond of fish, so I sent you this. Why didn’t you accept it?” Kung-yi Hsiu replied, “It is just because I am fond of fish that I didn’t accept it. Now as prime minister I can provide fish for myself. If I were to lose my position by accepting this fish, who would ever give me fish again? Therefore, I have not accepted it.” ⭊㚱怢䚠欂侭炻䚠ᶵ⍿ˤ⭊㚘烉ˬ倆⏃▄欂炻怢⏃欂炻ỽ㓭ᶵ⍿ḇ烎˭ 䚠㚘烉ˬẍ▄欂炻㓭ᶵ⍿ḇˤṲ䁢䚠炻傥冒䴎欂烊Ṳ⍿欂侴⃵炻婘⽑ 䴎ㆹ欂侭烎⏦㓭ᶵ⍿ḇˤ˭ When he ate vegetables and found them tasty, he pulled up all the vegetables in his garden and three them away. When he saw that the cloth woven in his home was of good quality, he quickly sent away the women working there and burned their looms, saying, “Do you want to make things so that the farmers and weavers have nowhere to sell their goods?” 梇勡侴伶炻㉼℞⚺吝侴㡬ᷳˤ夳℞⭞䷼ⶫ⤥炻侴䕦↢℞⭞⨎炻䅼℞㨇炻 ḹˬ㫚Ẍ彚⢓ⶍ⤛⬱㇨嬶℞屐᷶˭烎 Shih She Shih She 䞛⤊ was Prime Minister to King Chao of Ch’u 㤂㗕䌳 (r. 515–490 B.C.). He was steady and straight-forward, honest and of integrity, and there was no one he flattered, nothing he shunned [to investigate]. When he was on an inspection tour of the counties [of Ch’u],

86

Sitting with Sima Qian: Recollections of Translating the Shiji

someone killed a man along the road. When he gave chase, it was none other than his father. He released his father and returned to bind himself up. He sent someone to the king to report, “The one who killed a man, was your servant’s father. Now if I use my father to establish good government, it will be unfilial. But if I abandon the law and forgive his offense, I will be disloyal [to you]. Thus your servant’s offense is deserving of the death penalty. The king said, “You pursued him, but did not catch him, so you do not deserve to submit to be punished. You should attend administrating matters!” Shih She said, “If I were not partial to my own father, I would not be a filial son. But if I do not uphold the laws of my ruler, I would not be a loyal subject. Your Majesty has pardoned my offense, but it is my duty as a minister to submit to execution and die.” In the end he would not accept the king’s orders, but slit his throat and died. 䞛⤊侭炻㤂㗕䌳䚠ḇˤ➭䚜⹱㬋炻䃉㇨旧性ˤ埴䷋炻忻㚱㭢Ṣ侭炻 䚠徥ᷳ炻ᷫ℞䇞ḇˤ䷙℞䇞侴怬冒䲣䂱ˤἧṢ妨ᷳ䌳㚘烉ˬ㭢Ṣ侭炻 冋ᷳ䇞ḇˤ⣓ẍ䇞䩳㓧炻ᶵ⬅ḇ烊⺊㱽䷙伒炻朆⾈ḇ烊冋伒䔞㬣ˤ˭ 䌳㚘烉ˬ徥侴ᶵ⍲炻ᶵ䔞ặ伒炻⫸℞㱣ḳ䞋ˤ˭䞛⤊㚘烉ˬᶵ䥩℞䇞炻 朆⬅⫸ḇ烊ᶵ⣱ᷣ㱽炻朆⾈冋ḇˤ䌳崎℞伒炻ᶲよḇ烊ặ娭侴㬣炻冋 借ḇˤ˭忪ᶵ⍿Ẍ炻冒↶侴㬣ˤ Li Li Li Li 㛶暊 was a warden under Duke Wen of Chin 㗱㔯℔ (r. 636–628 B.C.). As he made a mistake in hearing a legal case and had someone put to death, he bound himself and sentenced himself to die. Duke Wen said to him, “As there are honored and mean official positions, so there are light and heavy punishments. If one of your subordinate official made a mistake, it is not your offense.” Li Li replied, “I occupy the position as head of the officials and have not yielded this to any of my officers. My salary and benefits are numerous, and I do not share my profit with my subordinates. Now [*3103*] I have made a mistake in hearing a legal case and had a man killed. To shift this offense to a subordinate officer is something I have never heard of.” [Thus] he declined to accept the duke’s command. Duke Wen then said, “If you feel you have committed an offense, have I not also committed an offense [as your superior]?” Li Li said, “There are also regulations to keeping order (or administering justice). If one errs in carrying out a punishment, he must be punished [in the same fashion]. Milord made me a judge because you considered I was able to attend to details in hearing cases and resolve all doubt. Now that I have made a mistake in hearing a legal case and had a man killed, my offense demands that I die. Ultimately, he was unwilling to accept the pardon, fell on his

William H. Nienhauser, Jr.

87

sword, and died. 㛶暊侭炻㗱㔯℔ᷳ䎮ḇˤ忶倥㭢Ṣ炻冒㊀䔞㬣ˤ㔯℔㚘烉ˬ⭀㚱 屜岌炻优㚱庽慵ˤᶳ⎷㚱忶炻朆⫸ᷳ伒ḇˤ˭㛶暊㚘烉ˬ冋⯭⭀䁢攟炻 ᶵ冯⎷嬻ỵ烊⍿䤧䁢⣂炻ᶵ冯ᶳ↮⇑ˤṲ忶倥㭢Ṣ炻‭℞伒ᶳ⎷炻朆 ㇨倆ḇˤ˭录ᶵ⍿Ẍˤ㔯℔㚘烉ˬ⫸⇯冒ẍ䁢㚱伒炻⮉ṢṎ㚱伒恒烎˭ 㛶暊㚘烉ˬ䎮㚱㱽炻⣙↹⇯↹炻⣙㬣⇯㬣ˤ℔ẍ冋傥倥⽖㰢䔹炻㓭ἧ 䁢䎮ˤṲ忶倥㭢Ṣ炻伒䔞㬣ˤ˭忪ᶵ⍿Ẍ炻ặ∵侴㬣ˤ [*2856*] His Honor the Grand Scribe says: Sun Shu Ao uttered one word and the markets of Ying returned to normal. When Tzu Ch’an died of an illness, the people of Cheng wailed and wept. Master Kung-yi saw the cloth was of good quality and sent the women away from his home. Shih She released his father and died, establishing the fame of King Chao of Ch’u. Li Li erred in executing a man and fell on his sword, enabling Duke Wen of Chin to regularize his state’s laws. ⣒⎚℔㚘烉⬓⍼㓾↢ᶨ妨炻悊ⶪ⽑ˤ⫸䓊䕭㬣炻惕㮹嘇⒕ˤ℔₨ ⫸夳⤥ⶫ侴⭞⨎徸ˤ䞛⤊䷙䇞侴㬣炻㤂㗕⎵䩳ˤ㛶暊忶㭢侴ặ∵炻㗱 㔯ẍ㬋⚳㱽ˤ * * * * * Those officials who upheld the law and followed reasonable methods, did not boast of their merits nor brag about their abilities. Though the families of the hundred cognomens did not praise them, neither did they err in their actions. [Thus] I composed the “Memoir of the Officials Who Followed [Reasonable Methods].” ⣱㱽⽒䎮ᷳ⎷炻ᶵẸ≇䞄傥炻䘦⥻䃉䧙炻Ṏ䃉忶埴ˤἄ⽒⎷↿⁛ 䫔Ḽ⋩ḅ, Shih chi, 130.3317.

FROM THE PAGE TO THE STAGE: TRANSLATING WORDPLAY FOR THE EYE AND TRANSLATING WORDPLAY FOR THE EAR LAURENCE K. P. WONG FELLOW, HONG KONG ACADEMY OF THE HUMANITIES

Before we proceed, it is first necessary to know what is “wordplay,” which, for all practical purposes, is a synonym for pun. Of all the definitions of the term I have come across to date, the most precise, most comprehensive is that given by Dirk Delabastita in his in-depth study of the subject, There’s a Double Tongue: An Investigation into the Translation of Shakespeare’s Wordplay, with Special Reference to Hamlet: wordplay [or pun] is the Ũeneral namŦ indicating the various textual phenomena (i.e. on the level of performance or parole) in which certain features inherent in the structure of the language used (level of competence or langue) are exploited in such a way as to establish a communicatively significant, (near)-simultaneous confrontation of at least two linguistic structures with more or less dissimilar meanings (signifieds) and more or less similar forms (signifiers)1

While most definitions of the term found in dictionaries are either sketchy or put in the language for the general reader, Delabastita’s has taken into consideration the distinction between “performance” and “competence,” made by Noam Chomsky, as well as the distinction between “parole” and “langue,” made by Ferdinand de Saussure. At the same time, expressions like “communicatively significant,” “(near)-simultaneous confrontation,” “more or less dissimilar meanings (signifieds),” and “more or less similar forms (signifiers)” help to fine-tune the definition, giving it further 1 Dirk Delabastita, There’s a Double Tongue: An Investigation into the Translation of Shakespeare’s Wordplay, with Special Reference to Hamlet. Approaches to Translation Studies, vol. 11, eds. Raymond van den Broeck and Kitty M. van Leuven-Zwart (Amsterdam; Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1993), 57.

90

From the Page to the Stage

precision. According to Delabastita,2 there are four types of puns, each of which is subdivided into the horizontal and the vertical type: (1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

Homonymic: = sound, = spelling Horizontal: e.g. We must be neat; not neat, but cleanly, captain: /And yet the steer, the heifer, and the calf are / All call’d neat. (The Winter’s Tale 1.2.123–25) Vertical: e.g. In the old age black was not counted fair [...] (Sonnet 127.1) Homophonic: = sound, ≠ spelling Horizontal: e.g. Indeed, I am in the waist two yards about – but I am now about no waste; I am about thrift. (The Merry Wives of Windsor 1.3.39–41) Vertical: e.g. O, carve not with thy hours my love’s fair brow, / Nor draw no lines there with thine antique [antic] pen [...] (Sonnet 19.9–10) Paronymic: ≠ sound, ≠ spelling Horizontal: e.g. You [...] made her serve your uses both in purse and in person. (The Second Part of Henry IV 2.1.114–16) Vertical: e.g. Come thou mortal wretch, / With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate [intricate, intrinsic] / Of life at once untie. (Antony and Cleopatra 5.2.301–3) Homographic: ≠ sound, = spelling Horizontal: e.g. Vertical: e.g.

The classification is comprehensive, dealing with all kinds of wordplay, and covering almost all aspects of the rhetorical device. I say “almost all aspects,” not “all aspects,” because, based only on Indo-European languages, it has not dealt with wordplay in Chinese and the translation of wordplay between the Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan language families. In discussing actual translation, Delabastita shines in respect of the translation of wordplay from English into Dutch, into French, and into 2

Delabastita, There’s a Double Tongue, 80–81.

Laurence K. P. Wong

91

German; but no mention is made of the translation between English, a language of the Indo-European family, and Chinese, a language of the Sino-Tibetan family. Given the limited ability and time of all theorists and translators with regard to language-acquisition, this is understandable, for no one, even if he is the greatest of polyglots, can be expected to know all the languages in use in the world. Nevertheless, by studying wordplay in Chinese and wordplay in translation in the English-Chinese direction, we will discover: (1) that Chinese lends itself more readily to homophonic wordplay than the major European languages; and (2) that translating wordplay for the eye is widely different from translating wordplay for the ear, or, to describe the difference in respect of drama, that translating wordplay for the page is widely different from translating wordplay for the stage. Let us first see why Chinese lends itself more readily to homophonic wordplay than the major European languages. Substituting “writing” or “script” for “spelling” in Delabastita’s classification, we will find that there are far more words in Chinese than in English that share the same sound, that is, = sound, ≠ writing. This is because Chinese words, particularly Chinese words in classical Chinese, are largely monosyllabic, sharing a very limited number of syllables, a phenomenon already observed by Huang Qingxuan 湫 ㄞ 叙 3 in his Xiucixue ᾖ 录 ⬠ (Rhetoric): ẍ倚枛妨烉ㆹ⚳⫿枛⚃䘦⋩ḅ䧖炻Ḁᶲ⚃倚⍲庽倚嬨㱽炻ḇᶵ忶ᶨ ⋫Ḵ䘦䧖ⶎ⎛ˤ 炷㚱ṃ枛⚃倚ᶵℐ炻ㆾ㰺㚱庽倚嬨㱽ˤ炸侴ㆹ⚳㔯⫿炻 ˪ᷕ厗⣏⫿℠˫㇨㓞╖⫿炻妰⚃叔⚃⋫ḅ䘦暞ℓ⫿炻⸛⛯㭷ᾳ嬨枛㚱 ᶱ⋩ᶫᾳ⫿烪ɃɃ烬 In respect of phonology, the Chinese language has only 419 syllables; when this is multiplied by five (four tones plus the light tone), the total is only around 1,200. (Some syllables do not have all four tones or the light tone.) However, according to the Zhonghua da zidian ᷕ厗⣏⫿℠ (The Great Chinese Dictionary), the Chinese language has 44,908 characters; on the average, each syllable is shared by 37 characters [...]4

As a result, each syllable has, on the average, thirty-seven homophones. When a writer wants to introduce wordplay of the homophonic type, he has many words / characters at his disposal; with the exception of only a 3

Huang Qingxuan 湫ㄞ叙, Xiucixue˪ᾖ录⬠˫(Rhetoric), University Texts Series (Taipei: Sanmin shuju gufen youxian gongsi ᶱ㮹㚠⯨偉ấ㚱旸℔⎠, 2002), 215. 4 My translation.

92

From the Page to the Stage

small number of characters, such as h 圜 in húdi 圜圞 and 炽bo 咼 in lu炽 bo 嗧咼, 5 each Chinese character in the Chinese language can function independently as a word; that is to say, each character can have at least one meaning. The syllable y in the Xiandai Hanyu cidian˪䎦ẋ㻊婆 娆℠˫(Modern Chinese Dictionary), for example, is shared by eighty-nine characters, ranging from “ᶨ” to “ㆧ.”6 When the syllable is pronounced with the script concealed, it is simply impossible to decide which of the eighty-nine characters the speaker has in mind. In the English language or other European languages, the same syllable can also be shared by more than one word, as is the case with meet and meat, feet and feat, and so on. But generally speaking, the average number of words sharing the same syllable in English or other major European languages is much smaller than the average number of characters sharing the same syllable in Chinese. Furthermore, while disyllabic and polysyllabic words make up a much larger number than monosyllabic words in English, 7 the vast majority of words in Chinese are monosyllabic. As a result, the meaning of the average word in English can be much more easily perceived by the ear than its counterpart in Chinese. Although one may have to pause to decide whether feet or feat is meant when one hears the sound /fit/ uttered, the uncertainty facing the addressee who hears the pinyin syllable “y” pronounced is much greater, for, in theory, the addresser may be referring to any one of the eighty-nine characters / words in the Xiandai Hanyu cidian, so much so that reception of the meaning depends much more on the eye than on the ear. Proceeding from this major difference between English and Chinese, one can say that the perception of a pun in Chinese, especially a pun of the homophonic type, is almost always through the eye rather than the ear when no hint or context is supplied. Let us look at some everyday examples:

5

Where necessary, in romanizing Chinese characters in this paper, I have indicated their tones with tone marks. 6 In the case of larger dictionaries, such as the Hanyu da cidian˪㻊婆⣏娆℠˫ (The Great Chinese Dictionary) or the Hanyu da zidian˪㻊婆⣏⫿℠˫(The Great Dictionary of Chinese Characters), the number is certainly much larger. 7 Even when an English word is monosyllabic, it often has consonants or consonant clusters to facilitate recognition or comprehension by the listener when spoken. Examples are pit (a terminal consonant t), spit (a consonant cluster sp), split (a consonant cluster spl); so even with monosyllabic words, English is less likely to give rise to ambiguity or confusion than Chinese.

Laurence K. P. Wong

93

ynsh ho zhy 梚梇⤥䄖炷ᷣ炸シ (from a commercial advertising cooking) w cng gd ㆹ㚦⬌㭺炷䌐炸(the title of a feature article in a local Chinese newspaper about a drug addict who succeeded in kicking her drug habit) chobi kungm 㼖炷㛅炸㊄䉪櫼 (the title of a TV programme) w da tng tng Ḽẋ⎴䱾炷➪炸(the name of a shop selling sweet foods) xingchn mji 悱炷楁炸䲼䰛惺 (the brand of a rice wine)

In each of the above puns, one syllable is shared by two differently written words / characters having different meanings; the word / character (put in brackets) which is normally collocated with the rest of the idiom / phrase / sentence is replaced by its homophone. If each pun is just read aloud on stage, the audience will not be able to perceive it; what they think they hear will be “梚梇⤥ᷣシ,” “ㆹ㚦⬌䌐,” “㛅㊄䉪櫼,” “Ḽẋ⎴➪,” and “ 楁䲼 (or 愯) 䰛惺,” not “梚梇⤥䄖シ,” “ㆹ㚦⬌㭺,” “㼖㊄䉪櫼,” “Ḽ ẋ⎴䱾,” and “悱䲼䰛惺.” To be able to function as a pun, each of the punning words needs a context to lead the listener to the double meaning. Printed on the page, the puns can function without any context, that is, except the words with which they are collocated, even though the normal word / character is suppressed, with its place taken over by a homophone. Despite the twist given to the idioms / phrases / sentences, the normal word / character still remains identifiable in the background or in the reader’s consciousness, able to set up, almost automatically, “a communicatively significant, (near)-simultaneous confrontation of at least two linguistic structures with more or less dissimilar meanings (signifieds) and more or less similar forms (signifiers).”8 Communicated through the ear, they cease to function as puns. They are, therefore, only puns for the page, meant to be read rather than heard. A pun that can function effectively on stage—that is, through the ear— works differently. A case in point is the famous pronouncement made by Gelett Burgess about women, which contains a homophonic pun: “A woman and a mouse, they carry a tale wherever they go.” The way the sentence is structured makes the pun not only visible when seen, but also audible when heard. Thus, when the sentence is read on the page, the full effect of the pun is immediately conveyed to the reader through the eye; when it is spoken aloud on stage, the punning effect created by the homophonous pair of words (“tale / tail”) can as easily be conveyed to the audience. This is because the context has set the parameters for the 8

Delabastita, There’s a Double Tongue, 57.

94

From the Page to the Stage

audience’s imagination, or, to be more specific, for the audience’s ear: once the word “mouse” is heard, the listener can immediately associate it with tail, since the tail is a dominant feature of a mouse; at the same time, when the word “woman” is spoken, the word “tale” can almost automatically present itself to the audience, since women are generally thought to be fond of telling tales. As a result, when the syllable /tel/ is uttered on stage, it can immediately trigger both tale and tail in the mind of the listener. In quoting the above saying more than twenty years ago in one of my Chinese essays, I translated the sentence as follows: “nüren he laoɄshu, qu dao naɄli jiu zai naɄli yan yao qi wei ⤛Ṣ␴侩滈炻⍣⇘⒒塷⯙⛐⒒塷 妨 嫈 ℞ ⦻ . 炱 As the translation of puns in the English-Chinese / Chinese-English direction is especially formidable, 9 I had a hard time trying to preserve the punning effect, which is conveyed by “yan yao qi wei 妨嫈℞⦻”: “yanyao 妨嫈” reverses the word order of “yaoyan 嫈妨 ”; together with “wei ⦻,” which often appears in the collocation “weiwei ⦻⦻,” and is normally associated with sweet words, it translates tale; at the same time, “yan 妨” is a yuzhuci 婆≑娆 (an auxiliary word that indicates mood),10 and “yao qi wei 嫈℞⦻” is homophonous with “yao qi wei ㎾℞⯦,” sensitizing the reader to the mouse-carrying-a-tail image; together, “yan 妨” and “yao qi wei 嫈℞⦻” make up the phrase “yan yao qi wei 妨嫈℞⦻,” which, modelled on a formulaic line typical of the Shijing ˪ 娑 䴻 ˫ , 11 translates tail, introducing what Catford calls a “translation shift.”12 My translation is far from ideal—for at least two reasons. First, it is meant for the eye, not for the ear; when spoken on stage, the audience, hearing the syllables “yán yáo qí wĕi,” might have difficulty even in 9

Later in this paper, I shall explain how pun translation between European languages is less formidable. 10 Wu Jingrong ⏛㘗㥖, et al., eds. The Pinyin Chinese-English Dictionary (Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 1983), 849. 11 In the poem “Wo xing qi ye”˨ㆹ埴℞慶˩, for example, we have four such formulaic lines: “yan jiu er ju 妨⯙䇦⯭”烊“yan cai qi sui 妨慯℞忪”烊“yan jiu er su 妨⯙䇦⭧”烊“yan gui si fu 妨㬠㕗⽑”烊“yan cai qi fu 妨慯℞叵”. (Li Chendong 㛶彘⅔, Shijing tongshi˪娑䴻忂慳˫, vol. 3 (Taipei: Shuiniu chubanshe 㯜䈃↢䇰䣦, 1977), 1206. 12 See J. C. Catford, A Linguistic Theory of Translation: An Essay in Applied Linguistics, Language and Language Learning, General Editors: Ronald Mackin and Peter Strevens (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), 73–82.

Laurence K. P. Wong

95

comprehending the surface layer of their meaning, to say nothing of their punning effect. Second, even on the page, its punning effect can perhaps be grasped only by those who are conversant with the Shijing. Yet, even then, it may still sound contrived to these learned readers. Not so with the original: once it is spoken on stage, its message will immediately get across to the audience in its entirety. Judged in this light, my Chinese translation, lacking the directness and simplicity of Gelett Burgess’s quotable quote, can only qualify as wordplay for the eye, not wordplay for the ear. To enable a pun for the eye to function as a pun for the ear, or, to put it differently, to transfer a pun from the page to the stage, a number of requirements have to be met. First, the pun must be simple and straightforward. Second, it must be instantly comprehensible. The third requirement is closely related to the second: that a context to facilitate the comprehension of the pun must, in most cases, be supplied. To illustrate my point, I shall refer to Hamlet, Shakespeare’s most famous play. First, let us look at the following sentences spoken by the hero: HAMLET

Let her not walk i’th’ sun. Conception is a blessing, but as your daughter may conceive – friend, look to’t. (2.2.184–86)13

In this passage, there are two puns: “walk i’th’ sun / son”; “conception” / “conceive.” The first is glossed by Thompson and Taylor14 as follows: “The suggestion is that the sun will cause her to breed, as it encourages the breeding of maggots in a dead dog. Hamlet may also allude to the sun / son pun (see 1.2.67), indicating that a son(-in-law) will make Ophelia pregnant.” Hibbard, commenting on the same pun, has a slightly different interpretation: (1) “walk i’th’ sun” = “go about in public”; (2) “run the risk of becoming pregnant by the sun / son.”15 In the second pun (“conception / conceive”), two meanings (“to become pregnant” and “to grasp with the mind; to apprehend”)16 are signified; “conception” = “(1) the ability to 13

My italics. Quotations from Shakespeare’s plays in this paper are based on Richard Proudfoot, Ann Thompson, David Scott Kastan, and H. R. Woudhuysen, eds., The Arden Shakespeare: Complete Works, by William Shakespeare (London: Cengage Learning, 2001). 14 Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor, eds. Hamlet, by William Shakespeare. The Arden Shakespeare (London: Arden Shakespeare, 2006), 251. 15 G. R. Hibbard, ed., Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, Oxford World’s Classics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 213. 16 William Little, et al., prepared, The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles, 3rd ed., rev. with addenda. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970).

96

From the Page to the Stage

form ideas (2) becoming pregnant. The same quibble is carried further in conceive.”17 The sun / son pun is homophonic, to which the audience’s ear has already been tuned by an earlier pun in 1.2.64–67 of the same play: [King] Hamlet King

17

But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son – A little more than kin, and less than kind. How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

Hibbard, ed., Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, 213. The Oxford English Dictionary’s (the dictionary is hereafter also referred to as OED) definitions of conceive and conception are even more precise and comprehensive: “conceive […] I. To conceive seed or offspring: with extensions of this sense. […] 1. trans. Of a female: To receive (seed) in the womb; to become pregnant with (young). […] b. pass. To be created or formed in the womb; to be engendered. […] c. loosely. To cause to be conceived, to beget. […] 2. intr. To become pregnant. […] 3. pass. To be made pregnant; to become or be pregnant, or with child. […] II. To take into, or form in, the mind. 6. To take or admit into the mind; to become affected or possessed with. […] b. To form and entertain (an opinion). […] 7. To form (a purpose, design, etc.) in the mind; to plan, devise, formulate in idea. […] b. To form or evolve the idea of (any creation of skill or genius). […] 8. To form a mental representation or idea of; to form or have a conception or notion of; to think of, imagine. […] 9. To grasp with the mind, ‘take in’; to apprehend, understand, comprehend. […] a. a thing. […] b. with obj. clause. […] c. To understand, take the meaning of (a person). […] d. absol. […] 10. To perceive (by the senses), observe. […] 11. To take into one’s head, form an opinion, be of opinion; to fancy, imagine, think: also used as a modest way of expressing one’s opinion, or a depreciative way of characterizing the opinion of another. […] b. with obj. and infin. (or equivalent) complement: To imagine, think (a thing to be so and so). […] III. In various senses, mostly after Latin. 12. To take in, comprise, comprehend” (OED 1989: vol. III, 649–50); “conception […] 1. a. The action of conceiving, or fact of being conceived, in the womb. […] 3. concr. That which is conceived: a. The embryo, foetus. […] b. Offspring, child […]. […] 5. a. The action or faculty of conceiving in the mind, or of forming an idea or notion of anything; apprehension, imagination. […] 6. […] c. The forming of a CONCEPT or general notion; the faculty of forming such. […] 7. a. That which is conceived in the mind; an idea, notion. […] c. An opinion, notion, view. […] 9. a. Origination in the mind; designing, planning. […] b. Something originated in the mind; a design, plan; an original idea (as of a work of art, etc.); a mental product of the inventive faculty” (OED 1989: vol. III, 654). See The Oxford English Dictionary, prepared by J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner, 20 vols., 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), first edited by James A. H. Murray, Henry Bradley, W. A. Craigie, and C. T. Onions, combined with A Supplement to The Oxford English Dictionary, edited by R. W. Burchfield and reset with corrections, revisions, and additional vocabulary.

Laurence K. P. Wong Hamlet

97

Not so, my lord, I am too much in the sun.18

The second pun, a homonymic one, hinges on the two senses of conceive (noun: conception), and is made comprehensible by the context. When read aloud on stage, both puns can readily be conveyed to the audience. In rendering the two puns, the translator should make them stage-oriented, not page-oriented. Let us see whether this effect is preserved in the following French, German, Italian, and Spanish translations: French:

18

HAMLET

Qu’elle n’aille pas au soleil! Concevoir est une bndiction, mais, mon ami, veillez  la faon dont votre fille peut concevoir.19

HAMLET

Ne la laissez pas se promener au soleil. Coůevoir est une bndiction, mais la faon dont votre fille peut conevoir, ami, veillez-y.20

HAMLET

Ne la laissez pas se promener au soleil. C’est une bndiction de concevoir; mais comme votre fille le conoit. Ami, veillez-y.21

The “kin” / “kind” pun is more complicated. As Delabastita has pointed out, “[s]ome [...] commentators [Wurth, Wilson, etc.] argue that s2 [sense 2 of “kin”] actually forms a polysemic cluster of distinct meanings (‘loving, affectionate’ v. ‘united through blood relationship, son’ v. ‘belonging to nature, natural’), thus superimposing a vertical play on ‘kind’ upon the horizontal ‘kin’ / ‘kind’ pun. Even though the passage is obviously cryptic, its punning character has usually been recognized (see e.g. FURNESS 1877: I, 33–34)” (Delabastita, There’s a Double Tongue, 352). As for “the ‘sun’ / ‘son’ pun,” it “has been acknowledged at least from the eighteenth century onwards (FURNESS 1877: I, 34–35)” (Delabastita, There’s a Double Tongue, 352). For ease of reference, I have italicized the puns in this and other source language texts to be discussed. 19 Yves Bonnefoy, trans., Hamlet. Le Roi Lear, by William Shakespeare (Saint-Amand (Cher): Gallimard, 2001), 83. 20 Jean-Michel Dprats, trans., La Tragique histoire d’Hamlet, prince de Danemark, by William Shakespeare, in Shakespeare: Tragédies I (uvres complètes, I), édition publie sous la direction de Jean-Michel Dprats avec le concours de Gisle Venet (Paris: Gallimard, 2002), 771; 2 vols. 21 Andr Gide, trans., La tragique histoire d’Hamlet, prince de Danemark / Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, in Œuvres compltes, ed. d’Henri Fluchre. Bibliothque de la Pliade, vol. 2: Tragédies (Paris: ditions Gallimard, 1959),

98

From the Page to the Stage HAMLET.

– Ne la laissez pas se promener au soleil: la conception est une bndiction du ciel; mais, comme votre fille peut concevoir, ami, prenez garde.22

German: HAM.

Lasst sie nicht in der Sonne gehn. Empfnglichkeit is ein Segen: doch nicht wie eure Tochter empfangen knnte [...] Seht euch vor, Freund.23

Hamlet.

Lat sie nicht in der Sonne gehn. Gaben sind ein Segen; aber da Eure Tochter empfangen knnte – seht Euch vor, Freund.24

Italian: AMLETO

E allora non fatele prender sole. Concepire  una benedizione; ma non come potrebbe farlo lei. Attenzione, amico.25

Spanish: HAMLET

No la dejes pasear al sol: concebir es una bendicin, pero no tal como lo puede concebir tu hija. Amigo, ojo a ello.26

HAMLET. — Pues no la dejes pasear al sol. La concepcin es una bendicin del cielo, pero no del modo como tu hija podra concebir. Cuida mucho de eso, amigo mio.27

640. 22 Franois-Victor Hugo, trans., Hamlet, in Shakespeare: Théâtre complet, by William Shakespeare, Tome II [vol. 2] (Paris: ditions Garnier Frres, 1961), 754. 23 Friedrich Gundolf, trans., Shakespeare in Deutscher Sprache (Berlin: Ei Georg Bondi, 1925), Bd. [vols.] 5–6, 37; 3 vols. 24 A. W. v. Schlegel and L. Tieck, trans., Hamlet, Prinz von Dänemark, in Shakespeares dramatische Werke, by William Shakespeare, herausgegeben und revidiert von Hans Matter, Erster Birkhuser-Klassiker 13, Erster Band [vol. 1] (Basel: Verlag Birkhuser, 1943), 141; 12 vols. 25 Eugenio Montale, trans., Amleto: Principe di Danimarca, by William Shakespeare (Milano: Enrico Cederna, 1949), 68. 26 Jos Mara Valverde, trans., Hamlet / Macbeth, by William Shakespeare (Barcelona: Editorial Planeta, 2000), 38. 27 R. Martnez Lafuente, trans., Hamlet, Príncipe de Dinamarca, in Obras completas de Shakespeare, by William Shakespeare, Libros clebres espaoles y extranjeros, Director literario: V. Blasco Ibez, Clsicos ingleses, Prlogo de

Laurence K. P. Wong

99

In all the versions, with the notable exception of the two by Gundolf and Schlegel and Tieck, the “sun / son” pun is missing. In the two German versions, “Sonne” (“sun” in English) echoes “Shne” (“sons”). Although the punning effect is only paronymic, not homophonic, as in the original, it is at least a partial success, and it can readily remind the German audience of the two words in German. As the following paragraphs will show, the two German translators’ partial success is not necessarily due to their resourcefulness; rather, it is due largely to the fact that German happens to have a pair of similar-sounding words which can match the “sun / son” pair in English, perhaps because of a higher degree of cognation between English and German than between English and French, or, for that matter, between English and Italian, or between English and Spanish. In translating puns, resourcefulness certainly plays an important role, but the degree of cognation between source language and target language is equally, if not more, important. This point will be made clearer when we look at the “conception / conceive” pun. The English word conceive derives from the Old French concevoir, which, in turn, derives from the Latin concipere,28 meaning “to receive, take in, grasp by senses or intellect [...] to form inwardly, conceive, imagine.” 29 It is, therefore, semantically cognate with the French concevoir,30 the Italian concepire,31 and the Spanish concebir; and all these words, namely, conceive, concevoir, concepire, and concebir, overlap in the two major senses in which conceive is used in the original, meaning “1. trans. To receive (seed) in the womb; to become pregnant with (young) [...] 2. intr. To become pregnant [...] 7. To form or have a conception of [...] 8. To grasp with the mind; to apprehend [...].”32 Apart from konzipieren, which derives also from the Latin concipere, German, which is closer to English than French, Italian, or Spanish in terms of

Vctor Hugo, Tomo primero [vol. 1] (Valencia: Prometeo, 1900), 111; 12 vols. 28 Little, et al., prepared, The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 360. 29 D. P. Simpson, ed., Cassell’s Latin Dictionary: Latin-English / English-Latin (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1968), 127. 30 Abel Chevalley and Marguerite Chevalley, comp., The Concise Oxford French Dictionary, French-English compiled by A. Chevally and M. Chevalley, English-French compiled by G. W. F. R. Goodridge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), 188. 31 Giorgio Cusatelli, ed., Dizionario Garzanti della lingua italiana (Milano: Aldo Garzanti Editore, 1980), 413. 32 Little, et al., prepared, The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 360. 1 and 2 make up the first major sense, 7 and 8, the second.

100

From the Page to the Stage

cognation,33 has yet another word which generally overlaps semantically with the English conceive, namely, empfangen, which means: “take, receive [...] conceive, become pregnant.”34 Because of the close cognation between these European languages, no one should be surprised, then, to see Shakespeare’s “conception / conceive” pun almost automatically transplanted into French (Bonnefoy, Dprats, Gide, Hugo), German (Gundolf), and Spanish (Mara Valverde, Martnez Lafuente). With reference to the translations under discussion, however, two points are worth noting. First, although German has a perfect match in Empfänglichkeit and empfangen for Shakespeare’s “conception / conceive” pun, Schlegel and Tieck have chosen to use “Gaben,” the plural form of Gabe, meaning “gift, present, donation [...] talent, endowment,”35 thereby giving up a golden opportunity to render the pun with enviable precision. Second, Italian has in the concezione / concepire pair a perfect match for Shakespeare’s “conception / conceive” pun. 36 Instead of making use of this readily available pair of words, Montale has chosen to use “Concepire” and “farlo” (literally “do it”), substituting “farlo” for “concepire,” thereby forgoing his advantage as a native user of Italian. As a result, the echoing punning effect in Shakespeare’s “conception / conceive” pair is lost. When it comes to translating Shakespeare’s puns in the English-Chinese direction, the reader will see a widely different picture. To illustrate my point, let us look at the Chinese versions by Bian Zhilin ⌆ᷳ䏛, Cao Weifeng 㚡㛒桐, Liang Shiqiu 㠩⮎䥳, Lin Tongji 㜿⎴㾇, and Zhu Shenghao 㛙䓇尒: ⑰

⇍嬻⤡崘⇘⣒春⸽ᶳˤ偂⫸塷㏆⼿↢⎵➪㗗ᶨ䧖䤷㯋炻⎗㗗 Ἀ䘬⤛⃺ḇ㚫⛐偂⫸塷㏆⼿㖶䘥䘬炻㚳⍳炻䔞⽫⓲ˤ37

33 English and German belong to the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family, whereas French, Italian, and Spanish, though of the same family as English and German, belong to the Italic branch. 34 Harold T. Betteridge, ed., Cassell’s German & English Dictionary (London: Cassell & Company Ltd., 1968), 129. 35 Betteridge, ed., Cassell’s German & English Dictionary, 171. 36 In translating concepire, Rebora has given the following entry: “concepire, v.t. To conceive (in all senses) [...].” See Pier Rebora, et al., eds., Cassell’s Italian-English English-Italian Dictionary, 7th ed. (London: Cassell, 1972), 117. 37 Bian Zhilin ⌆ᷳ䏛, trans., Hamuleite˪⑰⥮暟䈡˫(Hamlet), by William Shakespeare (Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe ἄ⭞↢䇰䣦, 1956), 59.

Laurence K. P. Wong

101

㻊⥮厲䈡 ᶵ天⎓⤡⛐⣒春⸽ᶳ崘嶗烊㆟⫽晾䃞㗗ᶨẞ㚱䤷㯋䘬ḳ烊Ữ 㗗⤪㝄Ἀ䘬⤛⃺㆟Ḯ⫽炻——㚳⍳炻怬㗗䔞⽫溆⤥ˤ38 ⑰

恋湤⎗⇍㔁⤡⛐⣒春⸽ᶳ崘嶗烊⍿偶⚢䃞㗗䤷㯋烊Ữ㗗⇍㔁 Ἀ䘬⤛⃺⍿偶烊——㚳⍳炻䔁䤆溆伟ˤ39

⑰⥮暟

⇍嬻⤡崘⇘⣒春ᶳ⏏ˤ㚱╄㗗䤷㯋炻 ——⎗ḇ姙䴎ぐ㏆↢ᾳ⤛⃺⼿╄␊炻侩㚳⍳炻䔁䤆⏏ˤ40

⑰

㚱⯙卓㔁⤡⛐⣒春⸽ᶳ埴崘烉ㅪḳ⚢䃞⤥炻Ữ㗗Ἀᶵ天⎓Ἀ 䘬⤛⃺ㅪ恋ṃḳˤ——㚳⍳炻Ἀ天㲐シ⤡␊ˤ41

⑰⥮厲䈡 ᶵ天嬻⤡⛐⣒春⃱⸽ᶳ埴崘ˤ㆟⫽㗗ᶨ䧖⸠䤷炻⎗㗗Ἀ䘬⤛ ⃺天㗗㆟Ḯ⫽炻恋⎗䲇Ḯˤ㚳⍳炻䔁⽫⒒ˤ42

Apparently, all the translations are meant for the stage. Unfortunately, the translators have not, stage-wise, been very successful in rendering the puns. With the “sun-son” pun, all have left out the “son” component, so that the double meaning of the original has been reduced to a single meaning, that is, with only the “sun” component retained. As for the “conception / conceive” pun, Cao, Liang, Lin, and Zhu have preserved only the sense of “becoming pregnant”: ㆟⫽晾䃞㗗ᶨẞ㚱䤷㯋䘬ḳ烊Ữ㗗⤪㝄Ἀ䘬⤛⃺㆟Ḯ⫽ [Ƀ] (Cao)

38

Cao Weifeng 㚡㛒桐, trans., Hanmulaite˪㻊⥮厲䈡˫(Hamlet), by William Shakespeare (Shanghai: Xinwenyi chubanshe 㕘㔯喅↢䇰䣦, 1955), 57. 39 Liang Shiqiu 㠩⮎䥳, trans., Hamuleite˪⑰⥮暟䈡˫(Hamlet), 2nd ed., vol. 3 of Shashibiya quanji˪匶⢓㭼Ṇℐ普˫(The Complete Works of Shakespeare), by William Shakespeare (Taipei : Yuandong tushu gongsi 怈㜙⚾㚠℔⎠, 1968), 70. 40 Lin Tongji 㜿⎴㾇, trans., Danmai Wangzi Hamulei de Beiju˪ᷡ湍䌳⫸⑰⥮暟 䘬ず∯˫(The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark), by William Shakespeare (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe ᷕ⚳㇚∯↢䇰䣦, 1982), 54. 41 Tian Han 䓘㻊, trans., “Hamengleite”˨⑰⬇暟䈡˩(“Hamlet”), 7th ed., by William Shakespeare, Shaonian Zhongguo xuehui wenxue yanjiuhui congshu ⮹⸜ ᷕ⚳⬠㚫 㔯⬠䞼 䨞㚫⎊ 㚠 , Shaweng jiezuo ji ˪匶佩‹ἄ 普 ˫ (Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju ᷕ厗㚠⯨, 1932), 51. 42 Zhu Shenghao 㛙䓇尒, trans., Hamulaite˪⑰⥮厲䈡˫, in Shashibiya quanji˪ 匶⢓㭼Ṇℐ普˫(The Complete Works of Shakespeare), by William Shakespeare, vol. 5 (Nanjing: Yilin chubanshe 嬗㜿↢䇰䣦, 1998), 313; 8 vols.

102

From the Page to the Stage ⍿偶⚢䃞㗗䤷㯋烊Ữ㗗⇍㔁Ἀ䘬⤛⃺⍿偶 [Ƀ] (Liang) 㚱╄㗗䤷㯋炻 ——⎗ḇ姙䴎ぐ㏆↢ᾳ⤛⃺⼿╄␊ [Ƀ] (Lin) ㆟⫽㗗ᶨ䧖⸠䤷炻⎗㗗Ἀ䘬⤛⃺天㗗㆟Ḯ⫽炻恋⎗䲇Ḯˤ(Zhu)

In hearing the above versions spoken on stage, the audience will in no way be able to sense the presence of a pun in the original. Of all the translators, only Bian and Tian have tried, although not with much success, to convey the original punning effect: 偂⫸塷㏆⼿↢⎵➪㗗ᶨ䧖䤷㯋炻⎗㗗Ἀ䘬⤛⃺ḇ㚫⛐偂⫸塷㏆⼿㖶䘥 䘬 [Ƀ] (Bian) ㅪḳ⚢䃞⤥炻Ữ㗗Ἀᶵ天⎓Ἀ䘬⤛⃺ㅪ恋ṃḳˤ(Tian)

In hearing the above sentences spoken on stage, the audience may be aware that, in both, there is a sexual innuendo typical of Shakespeare’s bawdy language. Yet, it is hard for them to equate either “DuɄziġɄli gao de mingɄbai 偂⫸塷㏆⼿㖶䘥” or “jiao niίde nü’er dong naxie shi ⎓Ἀ䘬 ⤛⃺ㅪ恋ṃḳ” with “becoming pregnant.” In other words, while the Chinese audience may know vaguely that Hamlet is saying something obscene, they will not be able to grasp the pun as their counterparts do in an English theatre. In the case of Bian, his failure to stick to the same phrase (either “gaoġ Ʉde chu mingɄtang ㏆⼿↢⎵➪” or “gao Ʉde ming Ʉbai ㏆⼿㖶䘥,” but not both) has broken the required pattern,43 making the sentence sound less like a pun. Given the formidableness of pun translation and in view of the lack of cognation between English and Chinese, the less than successful performance of the Chinese translators in handling Shakespeare’s puns is excusable. Nevertheless, considering the dramatic effect of wordplay in the theatre, any pun meant for the stage is worth preserving. In rendering the above passage, it is possible to reproduce part, if not all, of Shakespeare’s punning effect: 43

In Delabastita’s words, the two components of a pun must be “more or less similar forms (signifiers).” Bian’s translation would have sounded more like a pun if he had stuck either to “gaoġ Ʉde chu mingɄtang ㏆⼿↢⎵➪” or to “gao Ʉde mingɄbai ㏆⼿㖶䘥,” not first introducing the phrase “gaoġ Ʉde chu mingɄtang ㏆⼿↢⎵➪,” then switching to “gao Ʉde mingɄbai ㏆⼿㖶䘥.”

Laurence K. P. Wong ⑰⥮暟䈡烉

103

⇍嬻⤡⍣春⎘烉偂ᷕ㚱㔠㗗䤷㯋炻ᶵ忶Ἀ⤛⃺ḇ⎗傥偂 ᷕ㚱㔠烊天⮷⽫⒒炻㚳⍳ˤ44

The phrase “bie rang ta qu yangtai ⇍嬻⤡⍣春⎘” is what Delabastita calls a “semi-parallel pun translation,”45 that is, of the two meanings in the original, only one is retained, in this case the “sun” component, expressed in “春,” a component of the collocation “yangtai” (balcony), which signifies the part of a building on which one can bask in the sun. As an allusion, it refers to the famous story about the King of Chu 㤂 having sexual intercourse with the Goddess of Mount Wu on “yangtai” and, by extension, signifies any place where a man and a woman have sexual intercourse. Although the “son” component is not directly captured in the Chinese translation, the allusive power of “yangtai” does hint at an amorous relationship between Ophelia and Polonius’s would-be son-in-law, that is, Hamlet. As for the “conception / conceive” pun, “du zhong you shu 偂ᷕ㚱㔠,” echoing “xin zhong you shu ⽫ᷕ㚱㔠,” can literally mean “to comprehend with one’s mind,” which is one sense of “conception”; when applied to “ni nü’er Ἀ ⤛ ⃺ ,” the phrase triggers an innuendo, taking on bawdy overtones, hinting at Ophelia becoming pregnant. Thus, the translation can, in Delabastita’s terminology, be regarded as a parallel pun translation. In the theatre, where communication between actors and actresses on 44

Huang Guobin [Laurence K. P. Wong] 湫⚳⼔, trans. and annotated, Jiedu Hamuleite—Shashibiya yuanzhu Hanyi ji xiangzhu˪妋嬨˨⑰⥮暟䈡˩—匶⢓㭼 Ṇ⍇叿㻊嬗⍲娛姣˫(Reading and Interpreting Hamlet: A Fully Annotated Chinese Translation of Shakespeare’s Play, vol. 1 (Beijing: Qinghua daxue chubanshe 㶭厗⣏⬠↢䇰䣦, 2013), 301; 2 vols. 45 Delabastita, There’s a Double Tongue, 192–221 divides pun-translation techniques into nine types, some of which are further divided into sub-types: (1) pun>pun ((a) parallel pun translation, (b) semi-parallel pun translation, (c) non-parallel pun translation); (2) pun>non-pun translation (non-selective non-pun, selective non-pun, diffusive paraphrase); (3) pun>punoid ((a) repetition, (b) imagery, (c) assonance, alliteration, rhyme, (d) referential vagueness or ambiguity, (e) irony, understatement, (f) allusion); (4) pun>zero ((a) omission of a phrase or sentence, (b) omission of single speech, (c) omission of a piece of dialogue, (d) omission of a scene or act); (5) direct copy: pun S. T. = pun T. T.; (6) transference; (7) addition: non-pun>pun; (8) addition (new textual material): zero>pun; (9) editorial techniques (footnotes, anthological translation). In Delabastita’s discussion, not all types have examples. Judged by dramatic effect, “parallel pun translation” is the best, since this type of translation can reproduce the punning effect of the source language text with the highest degree of precision.

104

From the Page to the Stage

stage on the one hand and the audience on the other takes place through the voice, comprehension on the part of the audience has to be instant. When the message conveyed from the stage is simple, instant comprehension is easier to achieve. However, wordplay is by no means simple: having two or more meanings simultaneously, it can function effectively only when all these meanings are grasped instantly. When it comes to pun translation, the problem is compounded by the fact that finding, under the constraints imposed by the source language text, two similar sounds in the target language that mean dissimilar things corresponding to those in the original—is never easy. When the source and target languages are cognate, the possibility of hitting upon two words that can enable the translator to come up with a parallel pun translation may be higher. When the source and target languages are non-cognate, as is the case with the English-Chinese language pair, translating wordplay for the stage becomes a huge challenge. But once the translator achieves even a modest degree of success, his joy is doubled, which is denied to those who are translating in the English-French, English-German, English-Italian, or English-Spanish direction.

TRANSLATION TECHNOLOGY ON THE FAST TRACK: COMPUTER-AIDED TRANSLATION IN THE LAST FIVE DECADES* CHAN SIN-WAI DEPARTMENT OF TRANSLATION THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

[I] Introduction The history of translation technology, or more specifically computer-aided translation, is short, but its development is fast. It is generally recognized that the failure of machine translation in the 1960s led to the emergence of computer-aided translation. The development of computer-aided translation from its beginning in 1967 as a result of the infamous ALPAC report to the present, totalling forty-six years, can be divided into four periods. The first period, which goes from 1967 to 1983, is a period of germination. The second period, covering the years between 1984 and 1993, is a period of steady growth. The third period, which is from 1993 to 2003, is a decade of rapid growth. The last period, which includes the years from 2003 to the present, is a period of global development.

[II] 1967–1983: A Period of Germination Computer-aided translation, as mentioned above, came from machine translation, while machine translation resulted from the invention of computers. Machine translation had made considerable progress in a * This article is based on Chan Sin-wai, “The Development of Translation Technology: 1967-2013”, Chapter 1 in Chan Sin-wai (ed), Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Technology, Abingdon: Oxford (2015). Reprinted with kind permission of Routledge, part of the Taylor and Francis group. © Taylor and Francis 2015.

106

Translation Technology on the Fast Track

number of countries from the time the first computer, ENIAC, was invented in 1946. Several events before the ALPAC report in 1966 are worth noting. In 1947, one year after the invention of the computer, Warren Weaver, President of the Rockefeller Foundation, and Andrew D. Booth of Birkbeck College, London University, were the first two scholars who proposed to make use of the newly invented computer to translate natural languages.1 In 1949, Warren Weaver wrote a memorandum for peer review outlining the prospects of machine translation, known in history as “Weaver’s Memorandum.” In 1952, Yehoshua Bar-Hillel held the first conference on machine translation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and some of the papers were compiled by William N. Locke and Andrew D. Booth into an anthology entitled Machine Translation of Languages: Fourteen Essays, the first book on machine translation.2 In 1954, Leon Dostert of Georgetown University and Peter Sheridan of IBM used the IBM701 machine to make a public demonstration of the translation of Russian sentences into English, which marked a milestone in machine translation. 3 In the same year, the inaugural issue of Mechanical Translation, the first journal in the field of machine translation, was published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.4 In 1962, the Association for Computational Linguistics was founded in the United States, and the journal of the association, Computational Linguistics, was also published. It was roughly estimated that by 1965, there were eighteen countries or research institutions engaged in the studies on machine translation, including the United States, the former Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, West Germany, Italy, former Czechoslovakia, former Yugoslavia, East Germany, Mexico, Hungary, Canada, Holland, Romania, and Belgium.5 1 Chan Sin-wai, A Dictionary of Translation Technology (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2004), 290–91. 2 William Nash Locke and Andrew Donald Booth, eds., Machine Translation of Languages: Fourteen Essays (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1955). 3 Chan, A Dictionary of Translation Technology, 125–26; John Hutchins, “The Development and Use of Machine Translation System and Computer-based Translation Tools,” in International Conference on MT & Computer Language Information Processing, ed. Chen Zhaoxiong (Beijing: Research Center of Computer and Language Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1999), 1–16. 4 Victor H. Yngve, “Early Research at M.I.T. in Search of Adequate Theory,” in Early Years in Machine Translation, ed. W. John Hutchins (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2000), 50–51. 5 Zhang Zheng ⻝㓧, Jisuanji fanyi yanjiu˪妰䬿㨇侣嬗䞼䨞˫ ġ (Studies on Machine Translation), (Beijing: Tsinghua University Press 㶭厗⣏⬠↢䇰䣦, 2006).

Chan Sin-wai

107

The development of machine translation in the United States since the late 1940s, however, fell short of expectations. In 1963, the Georgetown machine translation project was terminated, which signifies the end of the largest machine translation project in the United States.6 In 1964, the government of the United States set up the Automatic Language Processing Advisory Committee (ALPAC) comprising seven experts to enquire into the state of machine translation.7 In 1966, the report of the Committee, entitled Languages and Machines: Computers in Translation and Linguistics, pointed out that “there is no immediate or predictable prospect of useful machine translation.”8 As machine translation was twice as expensive as human translation, it was unable to meet people’s expectations, the Committee recommended that resources to support machine translation be terminated. Its report also mentioned that “as it becomes increasingly evident that fully automatic high-quality machine translation was not going to be realized for a long time, interest began to be shown in machine-aided translation.”9 It added that machine translation should shift to machine-aided translation, which was “aimed at improved human translation, with an appropriate use of machine aids,” 10 and that “machine-aided translation may be an important avenue toward better, quicker, and cheaper translation.”11The ALPAC report dealt a serious blow to machine translation in the United States, which was to remain stagnant for more than a decade, and it also made a negative impact on the research on machine translation in Europe and Russia. But this gave an opportunity to machine-aided translation to come into being. All these events show that the birth of machine-aided translation is closely related to the development of machine translation. Computer-aided translation, nevertheless, would not be possible without the support of related concepts and software. It was no mere coincidence that translation memory, which is one of the major concepts and functions of computer-aided translation, came out during this period. According to John Hutchins, the concept of translation memory can be 6

Chan, A Dictionary of Translation Technology, 303. ALPAC, Language and Machines: Computers in Translation and Linguistics (Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, 1966); Susan Warwick, “An Overview of Post-ALPAC Developments,” in Machine Translation Today: The State of the Art, ed. Margaret King (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1987), 22–37. 8 ALPAC, Language and Machines, 32. 9 ALPAC, Language and Machines, 25. 10 ALPAC, Language and Machines, iii. 11 ALPAC, Language and Machines, 32. 7

108

Translation Technology on the Fast Track

traced to the period from the 1960s to the 1980s.12 In 1978, when Alan Melby of the Translation Research Group of Brigham Young University conducted research on machine translation and developed an interactive translation system ALPS (Automated Language Processing Systems), he incorporated the idea of translation memory into a tool called “Repetitions Processing,” which aimed at finding matched strings.13 In the following year, Peter Arthern, in his paper on the issue of whether machine translation should be used in a conference organized by the European Commission, proposed the method of “translation by text-retrieval.”14 According to Arthern, This information would have to be stored in such a way that any given portion of text in any of the languages involved can be located immediately…together with its translation into any or all of the other languages which the organization employs.15

In October 1980, Martin Kay published an article, entitled “The Proper Place of Men and Machines in Language Translation,” at the Palo Alto Research Center of Xerox. He proposed to create a computer translation system in which the display on the screen is divided into two windows. The text to be translated appears in the upper window and the translation will be composed in the bottom one to allow the translator to edit the translation with the help of simple facilities peculiar to translation, such as aids for word selection and dictionary consultation, which are labelled by Kay as a translator amanuensis.16 In view of the level of word-processing capacities at that time, his proposal was inspiring to the development of computer-aided translation and exerted a huge impact on its research later 12

W. John Hutchins, “The Origins of the Translators Workstation,” in Machine Translation 13, no.4 (1998): 287–307. 13 Alan K. Melby, “Design and Implementation of a Machine-Assisted Translation System,” paper read at the Seventh International Conference on Computational Linguistics held in Bergen, Norway, 14–18 August 1978; Alan K. Melby and Terry C. Warner, The Possibility of Language: A Discussion of the Nature of Language, with Implications for Human and Machine Translation (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1995), 187. 14 Peter J. Arthern, “Machine Translation and Computerized Terminology Systems: A Translator’s Viewpoint,” in Translating and the Computer: Proceedings of a Seminar, ed. B. M. Snell (London: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1979), 93. 15 Arthern, “Machine Translation and Computerized Terminology Systems,” 95. 16 Martin Kay, “The Proper Place of Men and Machines in Language Translation,” Research Report CSL-88-11, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center Palo Alto, C.A., the United States of America (1980).

Chan Sin-wai

109

on. Kay is generally considered a forerunner in proposing an interactive translation system. It can be seen that the idea of translation memory was established in the late 1970s and the 1980s. Hutchins believed that the first person to propose the concept of translation memory is Arthern. As Melby and Arthern proposed the idea almost at the same time, both could be considered forerunners. And it should be acknowledged that Arthern, Melby, and Kay made a great contribution to the growth of computer-aided translation in its early days. The first attempt to deploy the idea of translation memory in a machine translation system was made by Alan Melby and his co-researchers at Brigham Young University, who jointly developed the Automated Language Processing Systems, or ALPS in short. This system provided access to previously translated segments which were identical.17 Some scholars classify this type of full match as a function of the first-generation translation memory systems.18 One of the major shortcomings of this generation of computer-aided translation systems is that sentences with full matching were very small in number, minimizing the reusability of translation memory and the role of translation memory database.19 Some researchers around 1980 began to collect and store translation samples with the intention of redeploying and sharing their translation resources. Constrained by the limitations of computer hardware (such as its limited storage space), the cost of building a bilingual database was high, and with the immaturity in the algorithms for bilingual data alignment, translation memory technology had been in a stage of exploration. As a result, a truly commercial computer-aided translation system did not emerge during the sixteen years of this period and translation technology failed to make an impact on translation practice and the translation industry. 17

Hutchins, “The Origins of the Translator’s Workstation,” 291. Fabrizio Gotti et al. “3GTM: A Third-generation Translation Memory,” in the Third Computational Linguistics in the North-East (CLiNE) Workshop, Gatineau, Québec (2005): 26–30; Pinar Kavak, “Development of a Translation Memory System for Turkish to English,” Unpublished Master dissertation. Bo÷zaiçi University, Turkey (2009); Natalia Elita and Monica Gavrila, “Enhancing Translation Memories with Semantic Knowledge,” Proceedings of the First Central European Conference in Linguistics, Budapest, Hungary (29–31 May 2006): 24–26. 19 Wang Zheng 䌳㬋, “Fanyi jiyi xitong de fazhan licheng yu weilai qushi”˨侣嬗 姀ㅞ䲣䴙䘬䘤⯽㬟䦳冯㛒Ἦ嵐⊊˩(“Translation Memory Systems: A Historial Sketch and Future Trends”), Bianyi luncong˪䶐嬗婾⎊˫(Compilation and Translation Review) 4, no. 1 (2011): 141. 18

110

Translation Technology on the Fast Track

[III] 1984–1992: A Period of Steady Growth The eight years between 1984 and 1992 is a period of steady growth for computer-aided translation and for some developments to take place. Corporate operation began in 1984, system commercialization in 1988, and regional expansion in 1992. (1) Company Operation It was during this period that the first computer-aided translation companies, Trados in Germany and Star Group in Switzerland, were founded, that is, in 1984. These two companies later had a great impact on the development of computer-aided translation. The German company was founded by Jochen Hummel and Iko Knyphausen in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1984. TRADOS GmbH came from TRAnslation and DOcumentation Software. This company was set up initially as a language service provider (LSP) to work on a translation project they received from IBM in the same year. As the company later developed computer-aided translation software to help complete the project, the establishment of Trados GmbH is regarded as the starting point of the period of steady growth in computer-aided translation.20 Of equal significance was the founding of the Swiss company STAR AG in the same year. STAR, an acronym of Software, Translation, Artwork, and Recording, provided manual technical editing and translation with information technology and automation. Two years later, STAR opened its first foreign office in Germany in order to serve the increasingly important software localization market and later developed STAR software products, GRIPS and Transit for information management and translation memory respectfully. At the same time, client demand and growing export markets led to the establishment of additional overseas locations in Japan and China. The STAR Group still plays an important role in the translation technology industry.21

20 Ignacio Garcia and Vivian Stevenson, “Trados and the Evolution of Language Tools: The Rise of the De Facto TM Standard—And Its Future with SDL,” Multilingual Computing and Technology 16, no. 7, (2005): 18–31; http://www.lspzone.com 21 http://www.star-group.net

Chan Sin-wai

111

It can be observed that during this early period of computer-aided translation, all companies in the field were either established or operated in Europe. This Eurocentric phenomenon was going to change in the next period. (2) System Commercialization The commercialization of computer-aided translation systems began in 1988, when Eiichiro Sumita and Yutaka Tsutsumi of the Japanese branch of IBM released the ETOC (Easy to Consult) tool, which was actually an upgraded electronic dictionary. Consultation of a traditional electronic dictionary was by individual words. It could not search phrases or sentences with more than two words. ETOC offered a flexible solution. When inputting a sentence to be searched into ETOC, the system would try to extract it from its dictionary. If no matches were found, the system would make a grammatical analysis of the sentence, taking away some substantive words but keeping the empty words and adjectives which formed the sentence pattern. The sentence pattern would be compared with bilingual sentences in the dictionary database to find sentences with a similar pattern, which would be displayed for the translator to select. The translator could then copy and paste the sentence onto the Editor, revise the sentence to complete the translation. Though the system did not use the term translation memory and the translation database was still called a “dictionary,” it nevertheless had essentially the basic features of the translation memory of today. The main shortcoming of this system is that as it needs to make grammatical analyses, the programming of this system would be difficult and its scalability would be limited. If a new language were to be added, a grammatical analysis module would have to be programmed for the language. Furthermore, as the system could only work on perfect matching but not fuzzy matching, it drastically cut down on the reusability of translations.22

22

Eiichiro Sumita and Yutaka Tsutsumi, “A Translation Aid System Using Flexible Text Retrieval Based on Syntax-Matching,” in Proceedings of The Second International Conference on Theoretical and Methodological Issues in Machine Translation of Natural Languages (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Carnegie Mellon University, 1988), 2, retrieved 20 June 2013, from http://www.mt-archive. info/TMI-1988-Sumita.pdf.

112

Translation Technology on the Fast Track

In 1988, Trados developed TED, a plug-in for text processor tool that was later to become, in expanded form, the first Translator’s Workbench editor, developed by two people and their secretary.23 It was around this time that Trados made the decision to split the company, passing the translation-service part of the business to INK in the Netherlands, so that they could concentrate on developing translation software.24 Two years later, the company also released the first version of MultiTerm as a memory-resident multilingual terminology management tool for DOS, taking the innovative approach of storing all data in a single, freely-structured database with entries classified by user-defined attributes.25 In 1991 STAR AG also released worldwide the Transit 1.0 (“Transit” was derived from the phrase “translate it”) 32-bit DOS version, which had been under development since 1987 and used exclusively for in-house production. Transit featured the modules that are standard features of today’s CAT systems, such as a proprietary translation editor with separate but synchronized windows for source and target language and tag protection, a translation memory engine, a terminology management component and project management features. In the context of system development, the ideas of terminology management and project management began with Transit 1.0. Additional products were later developed for the implementation and automation of corporate product communications: TermStar, WebTerm, GRIPS, MindReader, SPIDER and STAR James.26 One of the most important events in this period is obviously the release of the first commercial system Trados in 1992, which marks the beginning of commercial computer-aided translation systems.

23

Garcia and Stevenson, “Trados and the Evolution of Language Tools,” 18–31; Colin Brace, “Trados: Smarter Translation Software,” Language Industry Monitor, Issue September–October, 1992. Available from http://www.lim.nl/monitor/trados-1.html. 24 http://www.translationzone.com 25 Eurolux Computers, “Trados: Smarter Translation Software.” Language Industry Monitor, No. 11 (September–October 1992): 8. Available from http://www.lim.nl.; http://www.translationzone.com; Thomas Wassmer, “Dr. Tom’s Independent Software Reviews,” retrieved from http://www.localizationworks. com/DRTOM/Trados/TRADOS.html on 15 December 2011. 26 http://www.star-group.net

Chan Sin-wai

113

(3) Regional Expansion The year 1992 also marks the beginning of the regional expansion of computer-aided translation. This year witnessed some significant advances in translation software made in different countries. First, in Germany, Translator’s Workbench I and Translator’s Workbench II (DOS version of Trados) were launched within the year, with Workbench II being a standalone package with an integrated editor. Translator’s Workbench II comprises the TW II Editor (formally TED) and MultiTerm 2. Translator’s Workbench II was the first system to incorporate a “translation memory” and alignment facilities into its workstation. Also of considerable significance was the creation by Matthias Heyn of Trados’s T Align, later known as WinAlign, the first alignment tool on the market. In addition, TRADOS began to open a network of global offices, including Brussels, Virginia, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland.27 Second, in the United States, IBM launched its IBM Translation Manager / 2 (TM/2), with an Operating System/2 (OS/2) package that integrated a variety of translation aids within a Presentation Manager interface. TM/2 had its own editor and a translation memory feature which used fuzzy search algorithms to retrieve existing material from its translation database. TM/2 could analyse texts to extract terms. TM/2 came with lemmatizers, spelling lists, and other linguistic resources for nineteen languages, including Catalan, Flemish, Norwegian, Portuguese, Greek, and Icelandic. External dictionaries could also be integrated into TM/2, provided they were formatted in Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). TM/2 could be linked to logic-based machine translation. 28 This system is perhaps the first hybrid computer-aided translation system that was integrated with a machine translation system.29 Third, in Russia, the PROMT Ltd was founded by two doctorates in computational linguistics, Svetlana Sokolova and Alexander Serebryakov, in St. Petersburg in 1991. At the beginning, the company mainly developed machine translation (MT) technology, which has been at the heart of the

27

Colin Brace, “Bonjour, Eurolang Optimizer,” in Language Industry Monitor (March–April 1994). Available from http://www.lim.nl/monitor/optimizer.html; Eurolux, “Trados: Smarter Translation Software”; http://www.translationzone.com; Hutchins, “The Origins of the Translator’s Workstation,” 287–307. 28 Brace, “Trados: Smarter Translation Software.” 29 Colin Brace, “TM/2: Tips of the Iceberg,” Language Industry Monitor (May–June 1993, retrieved from http://www.mt-archive; Wassmer, “Dr. Tom’s Independent Software Reviews.”

114

Translation Technology on the Fast Track

@promt products. Later, it began to provide a full range of translation solutions: machine translation systems and services, dictionaries, translation memory systems, data mining systems.30 Fourth, in the United Kingdom, two companies specializing in translation software production were founded. First, Mark Lancaster established the SDL International, which served as a service provider for the globalization of software.31Second, ATA Software Technology Ltd, a London-based software house specializing in Arabic translation software, was established in 1992 by some programmers and Arabic software specialists. The company later developed a series of machine translation products (Arabic and English) and MT and TM hybrid system, Xpro7 and online translation engine.32

[IV] 1993–2003: A Period of Rapid Growth This period, covering the years from 1993 to 2003, is a period of rapid growth, due largely to (1) the emergence of more commercial systems; (2) the development of more built-in functions; (3) the dominance of Windows operation systems; (4) the support of more document formats; (5) the support of more languages for translation; and (6) the dominance of Trados as a market leader. (1) The Emergence of More Commercial Systems Before 1993, there were only three systems available on the market, including Translator’s Workbench II of Trados, IBM Translation Manager / 2, and STAR Transit 1.0. During this ten-year period between 1993 and 2003, about 20 systems were developed for sale, including the following better-known systems such as Déjà Vu, Eurolang Optimizer,33 Wordfisher, SDLX, ForeignDesk, Trans Suite 2000, Yaxin CAT, Wordfast, Across, OmegaT, MultiTrans, Huajian, Heartsome, and Transwhiz. This means that there was a sixfold increase in commercial computer-aided translation systems during this period.

30 31 32 33

http://www.promt.com http://www.sdl.com http://www.atasoft.com Brace, “Bonjour, Eurolang Optimizer.”

Chan Sin-wai

115

Déjà vu is the name of a computer-aided translation system developed by Atril in Spain since 1993. A preliminary version of Déjà Vu, a customizable computer-aided translation system that combined translation memory technology with example-based machine translation techniques, was initially developed by ATRIL in June to fulfil their own need for a professional translation tools. At first, they worked with machine translation systems, but the experiments with machine translation were extremely disappointing, and subsequent experiences with translation memory tools exposed two main shortcomings: all systems ran under MS-DOS and were capable of processing only plain text files. Then, ATRIL began considering the idea of writing its own translation memory software. Déjà Vu 1.0 was released to the public in November 1993. It was with an interface for Microsoft Word for Windows 2.0, which was defined as the first of its kind. Version 1.1 followed soon afterwards, incorporating several performance improvements and an integrated alignment tool (at a time when alignment tools were sold as expensive individual products), and setting a new standard for the translation tool market.34 Déjà Vu, designed to be a professional translation tool, produced acceptable results at an affordable price. Déjà Vu was a first in many areas: the first TM tool for Windows; the first TM tool to directly integrate into Microsoft Word; the first 32-bit TM tool (Déjà Vu version 2.0); and the first affordable professional translation tool. In the following year, Eurolang Optimizer, a computer-aided translation system, was developed by Eurolang in France. Its components included the translator’s workstation, pre-translation server with translation memory and terminology database, and project management tool for multiple languages and users.35 In Germany, Trados GmbH announced the release of the new Windows version of Translator's Workbench, which could be used with standard Windows word processing packages via the Windows DDE interface.36 In June 1994 Trados released MultiTerm Professional 1.5, which was included in Translator’s Workbench, which had fuzzy search to deliver successful searches even when words were incorrectly spelt, a dictionary style interface, faster searches through use of new highly compressed data algorithms, drag and drop content into word processor and integrated

34 35 36

http://www.atril.com Brace, “Trados: Smarter Translation Software.” Brace, “Bonjour, Eurolang Optimizer.”

116

Translation Technology on the Fast Track

programming language to create powerful layouts.37 In Hungary, Tibor Környei developed the WordFisher for Microsoft Word macro set. The programme was written in the WordBasic language. For translators, it resembled a translation memory programme, but provided a simpler interface in Word.38 In 1995, Nero AG was founded in Germany as a manufacturer of CD and DVD application software. Later, the company set up Across Systems GmbH as a division, which developed and marketed a tool of the same name for corporate translation management (CTM) that supported the project and workflow management of translations.39 During the first half of 1996, when Windows 95 was in its final stages of beta testing, Atril Development S.L. in Spain began writing a new version of Déjà Vu—not just porting the original code to 32 bits, but adding a large number of important functionalities that had been suggested by the users. In October, Atril released Déjà vu beta v2.0. It consisted of the universal editor, Déjà vu Interactive (DVI), the Database Maintenance module with an alignment tool, and a full-featured Terminology Maintenance module.40 In the same year, Déjà Vu again was the first TM tool available for 32-bit Windows and shipped with a number of filters for DTP packages —including FrameMaker, Interleaf, and QuarkXPress—and provided extensive project management facilities to enable project managers to handle large, multi-file, multilingual projects. In 1997, developments in France and Germany deserve mentioning. In France, CIMOS released Arabic-to-English translation software, An-Nakel El-Arabi with features like machine translation, customized dictionary and translation memory. Because of its deep sentence analysis and semantic connections, An-Nakeel El-Arabi could learn new rules and knowledge. CIMOS had previously released English-to-Arabic translation software,41 37

http://www.translationzone.com Tibor KǷrnyei, “WordFisher for MS Word: An Alternative to Translation Memory Programs for Freelance Translators?” Translation Journal 4, no. 1 (2000). Available from http://accurapid.com/journal/11wf.htm 39 Kathryn German, “Across: An Exciting New Computer Assisted Translation Tool,” The Northwest Linguist (2009): 9–10; Axel Schmidt, “Integrating Localization into the Software Development Process,” Tcword (March, 2006). 40 Thomas Wassmer, “Comparative Review of Four Localization Tools: Déjà vu, MULTILIZER, MultiTrans and TRANS Suite 2000 and Their Various Capabilites,” in MultiLingual Computing & Technology, 14, no. 3 (2007): 37–38. 41 MultiLingual, “CIMOS Releases Arabic to English Translation Software,” MultiLingual (20 December 1997). Available from http://multilingual.com /newsDetail.php?id=422 38

Chan Sin-wai

117

in Germany, TRADOS GmbH released WinAlign as a visual text alignment tool as the first fully-fledged 32-bit application in TRADOS. Mircosoft decided to base its internal localization memory store on TRADOS and consequently acquired a share of 20 percent in TRADOS.42 The year 1998 marks a milestone in the development of translation technology in China and Taiwan. In Beijing, Beijing Yaxincheng Software Technology Co. Ltd. was set up as a developer of translation software. It was the first computer-aided translation software company in China. In Taipei, the Investec Corporation released Dr. Eye 98 (嬗℠忂) with instant machine translation, dictionaries and termbases in Chinese and English.43 In the same year, the activities of SDL and International Communications deserve special mention. In the United Kingdom, SDL began to acquire and develop translation and localization software and hardware—both for its own use in client-specific solutions, and to be sold as free-standing commercial products. At the end of the year, SDL also released SDLX, a suite of translation memory database tools. SDLX was developed and used in-house at SDL, and therefore was a mature product at its first offering.44 Another British company, International Communications, a provider of localization, translation and multilingual communications services, released ForeignDesk v5.0 with the full support of Trados Translator’s Workbench 2.0 and WinAlign, S-Tagger. Then, Lionbridge Technologies Inc. acquired it (known as Massachusetts-based INT’L.com at the transaction) and later in November 2001 decided to open-source the ForeignDesk suite free of charge under BSD licence. ForeignDesk was originally developed by International Communications around 1995.45 In June 1999, Beijing YaxinCheng Software Technology Co. Ltd. established Shida CAT Research Centre (ሖ䚄 CAT ⹄ウѝᗳ), which later developed Yaxin CAT Bidirectional v2.5.46 In June, SJTU Sunway Software Industry Ltd. acquired one of the most famous CAT products in China at the moment—Yaxin CAT from Beijing YaxinCheng Software Technology Co. Ltd., and it released the Yaxin CAT v1.0 in August. The release of this

42

http://www.translationzone.com http://www.dreye.com.tw 44 Amy Hall, “SDL Announces Release of SDLX Version 2.0,” SDL International, 2000. Available from http://www.sdl.com/en/about-us/press/1999/SDL_Announces _Release_of_SDLX_Version_2_0.asp; MultiLingual, “SDL Announces Translation Tools,” MultiLingual (23 September, 1998). 45 MultiLingual, “Lionbridge to Acquire INT’L com,” MultiLingual (2000), retrieved on 8 June 2011. 46 Chan, A Dictionary of Translation Technology, 338. 43

118

Translation Technology on the Fast Track

software signified, in a small way, that the development of computer-aided systems was no longer a European monopoly. In France, The first version of Wordfast PlusTools suite of CAT (Computer-Assisted Translation) tools was developed. One of the developers was Yves A. Champollion, who incorporated Wordfast LLC later. There were only a few TM software packages available in the first version. It could be downloaded freely before 2002, although registration was required.47 In the United States, MultiCorpora R&D Inc. was incorporated, which was exclusively dedicated to providing language technology solutions to enterprises, governments, and language service providers.48 In the United Kingdom, following the launch of SDL International's translation database tool, SDLX, SDL announced SDL Workbench. Packaged with SDLX, SDL Workbench memorized a user's translations and automatically offered other possible translations and terminology from a user's translation database within the Microsoft Word environment. In line with its “open” design, it was able to work with a variety of file formats, including TRADOS and pre-translated RTF files.49 The year 2000 was a year of activities in the industry. In China, Yaxin CAT v2.5 Bidirectional (English and Chinese) was released with new features like seventy-four topic-specific lexicons with six million terms free of charge, project analysis, project management, share translation memory online and simultaneous editing of machine output.50 In Germany, OmegaT, a free (GPL) translation memory tool, was publicly released. The key features of OmegaT were basic (the functionality was very limited), free, open-source, cross operation systems as it was programmed in Java.51 In Ireland, Alchemy Software Development Limited announced the acquisition of Corel CATALYST™, which was designed to boost the efficiency and quality of globalizing software products and was used by

47

http://www.wordfast.net/champollion.net http://www.multicorpora.com 49 MultiLingual, “SDL Announces SDL Workbench and Product Marketing Executive,” MultiLingual (22 February 1999). Available from http://multilingual.com/ newsDetail.php?id=12 50 Chen Gang, “A Review on Yaxin CAT2.5,” Chinese Science and Technology Translators Journal 14, no. 2, (2001). 51 http://www.omegat.org; Marc Prior, “Close Windows. Open Doors,” Translation Journal 7 no. 1 (2003). Available from http://accurapid.com /journal /23linux.htm. 48

Chan Sin-wai

119

over 200 software development and globalization companies worldwide.52 In the United Kingdom, SDL International announced in April the release of SDLX 2.0, which was a new and improved version of SDLX 1.03.53 It also released SDL Webflow for managing multilingual website content.54 In Germany, Trados relocated its headquarters to the United States in March and became a Delaware corporation. In France, Wordfast v3.0 was released in September. The on-the-fly tagging and un-tagging of HTML (HyperText Markup Language) files was a major breakthrough in the industry. Freelance translators could translate HTML pages without worrying about the technical hurdles. Not much happened in 2001. In Taiwan, Inventec Corporation released Dr. Eye 2001, with new functions like online search engine, full-text machine translation from English to Chinese, machine translation from Japanese to Chinese and localization plug-in.55 In the United Kingdom, SDL International released SDLX 4.0 with real-time translation, a flexible software licence and enhanced capabilities. In the United States, Trados announced the launch of TRADOS 5 in two flavours, Freelance and Team.56 In contrast, the year 2002 was full of activities in the industry. In North America, MultiCorpora R&D, Inc. in Canada released MultiTrans 3, providing corpus-based translation support and language management solutions. It also introduced a new translation technology called Advanced Leveraging Translation Memory (ALTM). This model provided past translations in their original context and required virtually no alignment maintenance to obtain superior alignment results. In the United States, TRADOS 5.5 (TRADOS Corporate Translation Solution™) was released. MultiCorpora released MultiTrans 3.0, which introduced an optional client-server add-on, so it could be used in a web-based, multi-user environment or as a standalone workstation. Version 3 supported TMX and was also fully Unicode compliant.57

52

http://www.alchemysoftware.ie http://www.sdl.com 54 http://www.sdlintl.com 55 Xu Jie,˨Dr. Eye 2001 嬗℠忂 5 ⣏朆↉≇傥˩(“Five Amazing Functions of Dr. Eye 2001”), in˪⺋㜙暣儎冯暣妲˫(Computer and Telecom) 3 (2001). 56 http://www.translationzone.com 57 Nancy A. Locke and Marc-Olivier Giguy A. “MultiTrans 3.0,” MultiLingual Computing and Technology 13, no. 7 (2002): 51. 53

120

Translation Technology on the Fast Track

In Europe and the United Kingdom, SDL International released its new SDLX Translation Suite 4, and then later that year released the elite version of the suite. The SDLX Translation Suite features a modular architecture consisting of five to eight components: SDL Project Wizard, SDL Align, SDL Maintain, SDL Edit, SDL TermBase in all versions, and SDL Analyse, SDL Apply, SDLX AutoTrans in the Professional and Elite versions. 58 In Germany, MetaTexis Software and Services released in April the first official version 1.00 of MetaTexis.59 In Asia, Huajian Corporation in China released Huajian IAT, a computer-aided translation system.60 In Taiwan, Otek launched in July the Transwhiz Power version (client/server structure), which aimed at enterprise customers.61 In Singapore, Heartsome Holdings Pte. Ltd. was founded to develop language translation technology.62 North America and Europe were active in translation technology in 2003. In 2003, MultiCorpora R&D Inc. in Canada released MultiTrans 3.5, which had new and improved capabilities, including increased processing speed of automated searches, increased network communications speed, improved automatic text alignment for all languages, and optional corpus-based pre-translation. Version 3.5 also offered several new terminology management features, such as support for additional data types, additional filters, batch updates and added import and export flexibility, as well as full Microsoft Office 2003 compatibility, enhanced Web security and document analysis capabilities for a wider variety of document formats.63 In the United States, TRADOS 6 was launched in April and TRADOS 6.5 was launched in October with new features like auto concordance search, Word 2003 support and access to internet TM server.64

58

Thomas Wassmer, “SDLX TM Translation Suite 2003,” Translation Journal 7, no. 3 (2003). 59 http://www.metatexis.com 60 http://www.hjtek.com 61 http://www.otek.com.tw 62 Ignacio Garcia and Vivian Stevenson, “Heartsome Translation Suite,” MultiLingual 17, no. 1 (2006): 77. Available from http://www.multilingual.com. 63 MultiLingual, “MultiCorpora R&D Releases MultiTrans 3.5,” MultiLingal (17 October 2003). 64 Thomas Wassmer, “TRADOS 6.5,” MultiLingual Computing and Technology 15, no. 1, (2004): 61.

Chan Sin-wai

121

In Germany, MetaTexis version 2.0 was released in October with a new database engine. And MetaTexis version “Net/Office” was released with new features that supported Microsoft PowerPoint and Excel files, TRADOS Workbench, and could be connected with Logoport servers.65 In Russia, PROMT, a developer of machine translation products and services, released a new version @promt XT with new functions like processing PDF file formats, which made PROMT the first among translation software that supported PDF. Also, one of the editions, @promt Expert integrated translation memory solutions (TRADOS) and a proprietary terminology extraction system.66 In France, Atril, which was originally founded in Spain but which relocated its group business to France in the late 1990s, released Déjà Vu X (Standard, Professional, Workgroup and Term Sever).67 Wordfast 4, which could import and translate PDF contents, was also released.68 Some developers of machine translation systems also launched new versions with a translation memory component, such as LogoVista, An-Nabel El-Arabi and PROMT.69 Each of these systems was created with distinct philosophies in its design, offering its own solutions to problems and issues in the work of translation. This was aptly pointed out by Brace70: Eurolang Optimizer is based on an ambitious client / server architecture designed primarily for the management of large translation jobs. Trados Workbench, on the other hand, offers more refined linguistic analysis and has been carefully engineered to increase the productivity of single translators and small workgroups.

(2) The Development of More Built-in Functions Computer-aided translation systems of the first and second periods were usually equipped with basic components, such as translation memory, terminology management and translation editor. In this period, more functions were developed and more components were gradually integrated into computer-aided translation systems. Of all the new functions developed, tools for alignment, machine translation, and project 65 66 67 68 69 70

http://www.metatexis.com http://www.promt.com R. Harmsen, “Evaluation of DVX,” 2008. Available from http://rudhar.com. http://www.wordfast.net http://www.promt.com Brace, “Bonjour, Eurolang Optimizer.”

122

Translation Technology on the Fast Track

management were most significant. Trados Translator’s Workbench II, for example, incorporated T Align, later known as WinAlign, into its workstation, 71 followed by other systems such as Déjà Vu, SDLX, Wordfisher, and MultiTrans. Machine translation was also integrated into computer-aided translation systems to handle segments not found in translation memories. IBM’s Translation Manager, for example, introduced its Logic-Based Machine Translation (LMT) to run on IBM mainframes and RS/6000 Unix systems. 72 The function of project management was also introduced by Eurolang Optimizer in 1994 to better manage translation memory and terminology databases for multiple languages and users.73 (3)

The Dominance of Windows Operating System

Computer-aided translation systems created before 1993 were run either in the DOS system or OS/2 system. In 1993, the Windows versions of these systems were first introduced and they later became the dominant stream. For example, IBM and Trados GmbH released a Windows version of TM/2 and of Translator’s Workbench respectively in mid-1993. More Windows versions came onto the market, such as the preliminary version of ATRIL’s Déjà Vu 1.0 in June in Spain. Other newly released systems running on Windows include SDLX, ForeignDesk, Trans Suite 2000, Yaxin CAT, Across, MultiTrans, Huajian, and TransWhiz. (4)

The Support of More Document Formats

Computer-aided translation systems of this period could handle more document formats directly or with filters, including Adobe InDesign, FrameMaker, HTML, Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel, Word, QuarkXPress, even PDF by 2003. TRADOS 6.5, for example, supported all the widely used file formats in the translation community, which allowed translators and translation companies to translate documents in Microsoft Office 2003 Word, Excel and PowerPoint, Adobe InDesign 2.0, FrameMaker 7.0, QuarkXPress 5, and PageMaker.

71 72 73

http://www.translationzone.com Brace, “TM/2: Tips of the Iceberg.” Brace, “Trados: Smarter Translation Software.”

Chan Sin-wai

123

(5) The Support of Translation of More Languages Translation memory is supposed to be language-independent, but computer-aided translation systems developed in the early 1990s did not support all languages. In 1992, Translator Workbench Editor, for example, supported only five European languages, namely, German, English, French, Italian and Spanish, while IBM Translation Manager / two supported nineteen languages, including Chinese, Korean, and other OS / two compatible character code sets. This was due largely to the contribution of Unicode, which provided the basis for the processing, storage, and interchange of text data in any language in all modern software, thereby allowing developers of computer-aided translation systems to gradually resolve obstacles in language processing, especially after the release of Microsoft Office 2000. Systems with Unicode support mushroomed, including Transit 3.0 in 1999, MultiTerm and WordFisher 4.2.0 in 2000, Wordfast Classic 3.34 in 2001, and Tr-AID 2.0 and MultiTrans 3 in 2002. (6) The Dominance of Trados as a Market Leader As a forerunner in the field, Trados became a market leader in this period. As observed by Colin Brace, “Trados has built up a solid technological base and a good market position” in its first decade. By 1994, the company had a range of translation software, including Trados Translator’s Workbench (Windows and DOS versions), MultiTerm Pro, MultiTerm Lite, and MultiTerm Dictionary. Its technology in translation memory and file format was then widely used in other computer-aided translation systems and its products were most popular in the industry. From the late 1990s, a few systems began to integrate Trados’s translation memory into their systems. In 1997, ProMemoria, for example, was launched with its translation memory component provided by Trados. In 1998, International Communications released ForeignDesk 5.0 with the full support of Trados Translator’s Workbench 2.0, WinAlign, and S-Tagger. In 1999, SDLX supported import and export formats such as Trados and tab-delimited and CSV files. In 2000, Trans Suite 2000 was released with the capacity to process Trados RTF file. In 2001, Wordfast 3.22 could directly open Trados TMW translation memories (Translator’s Workbench versions 2 and 3). In 2003, PROMT XT Export integrated Trados’ translation memory. In October 2003, MetaTexis “Net/Office” 2.0 was released and was able to work with Trados Workbench.

124

Translation Technology on the Fast Track

[V] 2004–the Present: A Period of Global Development Advances in technology have given added capabilities to computer-aided translation systems. During the last nine years, while most old systems have been upgraded on a regular basis, close to thirty new systems have been released to the market. This situation has offered a wider range of choices for buyers to acquire systems with different packages, functions, operation systems, and prices. One of the most significant changes in this period is the addition of new computer-aided translation companies in countries other than those mentioned above. Hungary is a typical example. In 2004, Kilgray Translation Technologies was established by three Hungarian language technologists. The name of the company was made up of the founders’ surnames: Kis Balázs (KI), Lengyel István (L), and Ugray Gábor (GRAY). Later, the company launched the first version of MemoQ, an integrated Localization Environment (ILE), in 2005. MemoQ’s first version had a server component that enabled the creation of server projects. Products of Kilgray included MemoQ, MemoQ server, QTerm, and TM Repository.74 Another example is Japan. In Japan, Rozetta Corporation released TraTool, a computer-aided translation system with translation memory, an integrated alignment tool, an integrated terminology tool and user dictionary. The product is still commercially available but no major improvement has been made since its first version.75 Yet another example is Poland, where AidTrans Soft launched its AidTrans Studio 1.00, a translation memory tool. But the company was discontinued in 2010.76 New versions of computer-aided translation systems with new features are worth noting. In the United Kingdom, ATA launched a new Arabic Memory Translation system, Xpro7, which had the function of machine translation.77 . SDL Desktop Products, a division of SDL International, announced the launch of SDLX 2004. Its new features included TMX Certification, seamlessly integration with Enterprise systems such as online terminology and multilingual workflow management, adaptation of new file formats, synchronized web-enabled TM, and Knowledge-based Translation.78 In the United States, Systran released Systran Professional

74 75 76 77 78

http://www.kilgray.com http://www.tratool.com http://www.thelanguagedirectory.com/translation/translation_software http://www.atasoft.com http://www.sdl.com

Chan Sin-wai

125

Premium 5.0, which contained integrated tools such as integrated translation memory with TMX support, a translator’s workbench for post-editing and ongoing quality analysis.79 Multilizer Inc., a developer of globalization technologies in the United States, released a new version of Multilizer, which included multiuser translation memory with Translation Memory Manager (TMM), a standalone tool for maintaining Multilizer Translation Memory contents. TMM allowed editing, adding and deleting translations, and also included a briefcase model for working with translations off-line.80 In Ukraine, Advanced International Translations (AIT) started work on user-friendly translation memory software, later known as AnyMen, which was released in December 2008. In 2005, translation technology moved further ahead with new versions and new functions. In North America, MultiCorpora in Canada released MultiTrans 4, which built on the foundation of MultiTrans 3.7 and had a new alignment process that was completely automated. 81 Trados, incorporated in the United States, produced TRADOS 7 Freelance, which supported twenty additional languages, including Hindi. At an operating system level, Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP Home, Windows XP Professional, and Windows 2003 Server were supported. More file formats were now directly supported by TagEditor. MultiCorpora also introduced MultiTrans 4, which was designed to meet the needs of large organizations by providing the newest efficiencies for translators in the areas of text alignment quality, user-friendliness, flexibility, and web access.82 In Europe, Lingua et Machina, a memory translation tool developer, released SIMILIS v1.4, its second-generation translation tool. SIMILIS uses linguistic parsers in conjunction with the translation memory paradigm. This function allowed for the automatic extraction of bilingual terminology from translated documents. Version 1.4 brought compatibility with the TRADOS translation memory format (Text and TMX) and a new language, German.83 In Switzerland, STAR Group released Transit XV Service Pack 14. This version extended its capabilities with a number of new features and support of 160 languages and language versions,

79

http://www.systransoft.com http://www.multilizer.com 81 MultiLingual, “MultiCorpora Announces the Release of MultiTrans 4,” MultiLingual (31 August 2005). 82 http://www.multicorpora.com 83 MultiLingual, “SIMILIS Version 1.4 Released,” MultiLingual (27 April 2005). 80

126

Translation Technology on the Fast Track

including Urdu (India) and Urdu (Pakistan). It supported Microsoft Word 2003 files and had MySpell dictionaries.84 (PROMT released @promt 7.0 translation software, which supported the integrated translation memory, the first of its kind among PROMT’s products.85 In the United Kingdom, SDL Desktop Products released the latest version of its translation memory tool SDLX 2005, which expanded the Terminology QA Check and automatically checked source and translations for inconsistent, incomplete, partial or empty translations, corrupt characters, and consistent regular expressions, punctuation and formatting. Language support had been added for Maltese, Armenian and Georgian, and the system could handle more than 150 languages.86 In June, SDL International acquired TRADOS for £35 million. The acquisition provided extensive end-to-end technology and service solutions for global information assets.87 In October, SDL Synergy was released as a new project management tool on the market. In Asia, Huajian Corporation in China released in June Huajian Multilingual IAT network version (厗⺢⣂婆 IAT 䵚䴉䇰) and in October Huajian IAT (Russian to Chinese) standalone version. (http://www. hjtrans.com). In July, Beijing Orient Yaxin Software Technology Co. Ltd. released Yaxin CAT 2.0, which was a suite including Yaxin CAT 3.5, CAM 3.5, Server, Lexicons, Translation Memory Maintenance and Example Base. In Singapore, Heartsome Holdings Pte. Ltd. released Heartsome Translation Suite, which was composed of three programmes: an XLIFF Editor in which source files were converted to XLIFF format and translated; a TMX Editor that dealt with TMX files; and a Dictionary Editor that dealt with TBX files.88 In Taiwan, Otek released Transwhiz 9.0 for English, Chinese, and Japanese languages.89 Significant advances in translation technology were made in 2006 particularly in Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

84

MultiLingual, “STAR Releases Transit Service Pack 14”, MultiLingual (15 April 2005). Available from http://multilingual.com/newsDetail.php?id=4169. 85 http://www.promt.com 86 MultiLingual, “SDL Releases SDLX2005,” MultiLingual (5 May 2005). Available from: http://multilingual.com/newsDetail.php?id=4216. 87 http://www.translationzone.com 88 Garcia and Stevenson, “Heartsome Translation Suite,” 77. 89 http://www.otek.com.tw

Chan Sin-wai

127

In Europe, Across Systems GmbH in Germany released in September its Corporate Translation Management 3.5, which marked the start of the worldwide rollout of Across software.90 In the United Kingdom, SDL International released in February SDL Trados 2006, which integrated with Translators Workbench, TagEditor, SDLX editing environments, and SDL MultiTerm. It included new support for Quark, InDesign CS2, and Java.91 In the United States, MultiCorpora launched TextBase TM concept.92 Apple Inc. released in August AppleTrans, a text editor specially designed for translators, featuring online corpora which represented “translation memory” accessible through documents. AppleTrans helped users localize web pages.93 Lingotek, a language search engine developer in the United States, launched a beta version of a collaborative language translation service that enhanced a translator’s efficiency by quickly finding meaning-based translated material for re-use. Lingotek’s language search engine indexed linguistic knowledge from a growing repository of multilingual content and language translations instead of web pages. Users could then access its database of previously translated material to find more specific combinations of words for re-use. Such meaning-based searching maintained better style, tone, and terminology. Lingotek ran completely within most popular web browsers, including initial support for Internet Explorer and Firefox. Lingotek supported Word, Rich Text Format (RTF), Open Office, HTML, XHTML, and Excel formats, thereby allowing users to upload such documents directly into Lingotek. Lingotek also supported existing translation memory files that were TMX-compliant memories, thus allowing users to import TMX files into both private and public indices.94 In 2007, Wordfast 5.5 was released in France. It was an upgrade from Wordfast 4, in which Mac support was completely overhauled. This version continued to offer translators collaboration community via a LAN. Each Wordfast license granted users the ability to search Wordfast’s web-based TM and knowledge base, VLTM.95 In Germany, a group of independent translators and programmers under the GNU GPL license 90

MultiLingual, “Across Rolls out New Version 3.5,” MultiLingual (20 November 2006). 91 http://www.sdl.com 92 http://www.multicorpora.com 93 http://developer.apple.com 94 MultiLingual, “Lingotek Announces Beta Launch of Language Search Engine,” MultiLingual (2006), retrieved from http://multilingual.com/newsDetail.php?idġ =5168 on 7 July 2011. 95 http://www.wordfast.net

128

Translation Technology on the Fast Track

developed in October Anaphraseus, a computer-aided translation tool for creating, managing and using bilingual translation memories. Originally, Anaphraseus was developed to work with the Wordfast TM format, but it could also export and import files in TMX format.96 In Hungary, Kilgray Translation Technologies released in January MemoQ 2.0. The main theme for the new version was networking, featuring a new resource server. This server not only stored translation memory and term bases, but also offered the possibility of creating server projects that allowed for the easy distribution of work among several translators and ensured productivity at an early stage of the learning curve. Improvements on the client side included support for XML and Adobe FrameMaker MIF file formats; improvements to all other supported file formats; and support for the Segmentation Rule eXchange standard, auto-propagation of translated segments, better navigation, and over a hundred more minor enhancements.97 In Russia, MT2007, a freeware, was developed by a professional programmer Andrew Manson. The main idea was to develop easy-to-use software with extensive features. This software lacked many features that leading systems had. In the United Kingdom, SDL International released in March SDL Trados 2007, which had features such as a new concept of project delivery and supply chain, a new one-central-view dashboard for new project wizard, PerfectMatch, automated quality assurance checker and full support for Microsoft Office 2007 and Windows Vista. In the United States, MultiCorpora’s Advanced Leveraging launched WordAlign to boost the ability to align text at the individual term and expression level. 98 MadCap Software Inc., a multi-channel content authoring company, developed in May MadCap Lingo, an XML-based, fully-integrated Help authoring tool and translation environment. MadCap Lingo offered an easy-to-use interface, complete Unicode support for all left-to-right languages for assisting localization tasks. Across Systems GmbH and MadCap Software announced a partnership to combine technical content creation with advanced translation and localization. In June, Alchemy Software Development Ltd. and MadCap Software, Inc. announced a joint technology partnership that combined technical content creation with visual TM technology.

96

http://anaphraseus.sourceforge.net MultiLingual, “Quality Assurance Module Available for MemoQ,” MultiLingual 4 (April 2007). 98 http://www.multicorpora.com 97

Chan Sin-wai

129

In 2008, Europe again figured prominently in computer-aided translation software production. In Germany, Across Systems GmbH released in April Across Language Server 4.0 Service Pack 1, which contained various extensions in addition to authoring, such as FrameMaker 8 and SGML support, context matching, and improvements for web-based translations via crossWeb.99 It also introduced in July its new Language Portal Solution (later known as Across Language Portal) for large-scale organizations and multinational corporations, which allowed customers operating on an international scale to implement Web portals for all language-related issues and for all staff levels that need to make use of language resources. At the same time Across released the latest update to the Across Language Server, offering many new functions for the localization of software user interfaces.100 In Luxembourg, Wordbee S.A. was founded as a translation software company focusing on web-based integrated CAT and management solutions.101 In Eastern Europe, Kilgray Translation Technologies in Hungary released in September MemoQ 3.0, which included a new termbase and provided new terminology features. It introduced full support for XLIFF as a bilingual format and offered the visual localization of RESX files. MemoQ 3.0 was available in English, German, Japanese and Hungarian.102 In Russia, Promt released in March 8.0 version with major improvement in its translation engine, translation memory system with TMX files import support, and dialect support in English (UK and American), Spanish (Castilian and Latin American), Portuguese (Portuguese and Brazilian), German (German and Swiss) and French (French, Swiss, Belgian, Canadian). 103 In Ukraine, Advanced International Translations (AIT) released in December AnyMen, a translation memory system compatible with Microsoft Word. In Uruguay, Maxprograms launched in April Swordfish version 1.0-0, a cross-platform computer-aided translation tool based on the XLIFF 1.2 open standard published by OASIS. 104 In November, this company released Stingray version 1.0-0, a cross-platform document aligner. The translation memories in TMX, CSV or Trados TXT format generated by Stingray could be used in most modern computer-aided

99

MultiLingual, “Across Language Server 4.0 SP1,” MultiLingual (21 April 2008). http://www.across.net 101 http://www.wordbee.com 102 http://kilgray.com 103 http://www.promt.com 104 http://www.maxprograms.com 100

130

Translation Technology on the Fast Track

translation systems.105 In Ireland, Alchemy Software Development, a company in visual localization solutions, released in July Alchemy PUBLISHER 2.0, which combined visual localization technology with translation memory for documentation. It supported standard documentation formats, such as MS Word, XML, application platforms such as Windows 16/22/64x binaries, web-contents formats such as HTML, ASP, and all derivative content formats.106 In North America, JiveFusion Technologies, Inc. in Canada officially launched Fusion One and Fusion Collaborate 3.0. The launches introduced a new method of managing translation memories. New features include complete contextual referencing. JiveFusion also integrated Fusion Collaborate 3.0 with TransFlow, a project and workflow management solution by Logosoft. 107 In the United States, MadCap Software, Inc. released in February MadCap Lingo 2.0, which included the Darwin Information Typing Architecture standard, Microsoft Word and a range of standard text and language formats. In September, it released MadCap Lingo 3.0, which included a new project packager function designed to bridge the gap between authors and translators who used other translation memory system software and a new TermBase Editor for creating databases of reusable translated terms. In Asia, Yaxin CAT 4.0 was released in China in August with some new features including a computer-aided project platform for project management and huge databases for handling large translation projects. In Taiwan, Otek released Transwhiz 10 for translating English, Chinese and Japanese languages, with fuzzy search engine and Microsoft Word workstation.108 The year 2009 witnessed the development of Autshumato Integrated Translation Environment (ITE) version 1.0, a project funded by the Department of Arts and Culture of the Republic of South Africa. It was released by The Centre for Text Technology (CTexT®) at the Potchefstroom Campus of the North-West University and University of Pretoria after two years’ research and development. Although Autshumato ITE was specifically developed for the eleven official South African languages, it was in essence language independent, and could be adapted

105

http://www.maxprograms.com http://www.alchemysoftware.ie 107 MultiLingual, “Fusion One and Fusion Collaborate 3.0,” MultiLingual (28 November 2008). 108 http://www.otek.com.tw 106

Chan Sin-wai

131

for translating between any language pair. In Europe, Wordfast released in January Wordfast Translation Studio, a bundled product with Wordfast Classic (for Microsoft Word) and Wordfast Pro (a standalone CAT platform). With over 15,000 licences in active use, Wordfast claimed to be the second most widely used translation memory tool. 109 In Germany, Across Systems GmbH released in May Across Language Server 5.0, which offered several options for process automation as well as for workflow management and analysis. Approximately fifty connections were available for interacting with other systems. 110 In September, STAR Group in Switzerland released TransitNXT (Professional, Freelance Pro, Workstation, and Freelance). Service pack 1 for Transit NXT/TermStar NXT contained additional user interface languages for Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, and Khmer, enhanced alignment usability, support for QuarkXpress 7, and proofreading for internal repetitions. In the United Kingdom, SDL announced in June the launch in the same month SDL Trados® Studio 2009, which included the latest versions of SDL MultiTerm, SDL Passolo Essential, SDL Trados WinAlign, and SDL Trados 2007 Suite. New features included Context Match, AutoSuggest, QuickPlace.111 In October, SDL released its enterprise platform SDL TM Server™ 2009, a new solution to centralize, share, and control translation memories.112 In North America, JiveFusion Technologies, Inc. in Canada released in March Fusion 3.1 to enhance current TMX compatibility and the capability to import and export to TMX while preserving complete segment context. 113 In the United States, Lingotek introduced software-as-a-service collaborative translation technology that combined the workflow and computer-aided translation capabilities of human and machine translation into one application. Organizations could upload new projects, assign translators (paid or unpaid), check the status of current projects in real time and download completed documents from any computer with web access.114

109

http://www.wordfast.net MultiLingual, “Across Language Server V.5,” MultiLingual (13 May 2009). 111 http://www.sdl.com 112 http://www.sdl.com 113 MultiLingual, “Fusion 3.1,” MultiLingual (19 March 2009). 114 MultiLingual, “Lingotek Launches Crowdsourcing Translation Platform,” MultiLingual (2009), retrieved from http://multilingual.com/newsDetail.php?id =7103 on 7 July 2011. 110

132

Translation Technology on the Fast Track

In Asia, Beijing Zhongke LongRay Software and Technology Ltd. Co. in China released in September LongRay CAT 3.0 (standalone edition), a CAT system with translation memory, alignment, dictionary and terminology management and other functions.115 In November, Foshan Snowman Computer Co. Ltd. released Snowman version 1.0 in China.116 Snowman deserves some mentioning because (1) Snowman was new; (2) the green trial version of Snowman could be downloaded free of charge; (3) Snowman was easy to use as its interface was user-friendly and the system was easy to operate; and (4) Snowman had the language pair of Chinese and English that caters to the huge domestic market as well as the market abroad. Most of the activities relating to computer-aided translation in 2010 took place in Europe and North America. In Germany, Across Systems GmbH released in August Across Language Server v. 5 Service Pack 1, which introduced a series of new functionalities and modes of operation relating to the areas of project management, machine translation, crowdsourcing, and authoring assistance. 117 In October, MetaTexis version 3.0 was released, which imported filter for Wordfast Pro and Trados Studio translation memories and documents.118 In France, Wordfast LLC released in July Wordfast Pro 2.4 (WFP) with over 60 enhancements. This system was a standalone environment that featured a highly customizable interface, enhanced batch processing functionality, and increased file format support.119 In October, Wordfast LLC created an application to support translation on the iPhone and iPad in the Wordfast Anywhere environment. (http://www. wordfast.net) In Hungary, Kilgray Translation Technologies released in February MemoQ 4.0, which was integrated with project management functions for project managers who wanted to have more control and enable translators to work in any translation tool. In October, the company released MemoQ 4.5, which had a rewritten translation memory engine and improvements to the alignment algorithm.120 In France, Atril released in March TeaM Server, which allowed translators with Déjà vu Workgroup to work on multinational and multisite translation projects on a LAN or over Internet, sharing their translations in real-time, ensuring superior

115 116 117 118 119 120

http://www.zklr.com http://www.gcys.cn http://new.multilingual.com http://www.metatexis.com http://www.wordfast.net http://www.kilgray.com

Chan Sin-wai

133

quality and consistency. TeaM Server also provided scalable centralized storage for translation memories and terminology databases. The size of translation repositories and the number of concurrent users were only limited by the server hardware and bandwidth. 121 In October, Atril released Déjà Vu X2 in four editions: Editor, Standard, Professional and Workgroup. Its new features included DeepMiner data extraction engine, new StartView interface, and AutoWrite word prediction. In Switzerland, STAR Group released in October Transit NXT Service Pack 3 and TermStar NXT. Transit NXT Service Pack 3 contained the following improvements: support of Microsoft Office 2007, InDesign CS5, QuarkXpress 8 and QuarkXpress 8.1, and PDF synchronization for MS Word files. In the United Kingdom, SDL released in March a new subscription level of its SDL Trados Studio, which included additional productivity tools for translators such as Service Pack 2, enabling translators to plug in to multiple automatic translation tools. The company also did a beta launch of SDL OpenExchange, inviting the developer community to make use of standard open application programming interfaces to increase the functionality of SDL Trados Studio.122 In September, XTM International released XTM Cloud, which was a totally online Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) computer-assisted translation tool set, combining translation workflow with translation memory, terminology management and a fully featured translator workbench. The launch of XTM Cloud means independent freelance translators have access to XTM for the first time.123 In Ireland, Alchemy Software Development Limited released in May Alchemy PUBLISHER 3.0, which supports all aspects of the localization workflow, including form translation, engineering, testing and project management. It also provided a Machine Translation connector which was jointly developed by PROMT, so that documentation formats could be machine translated.124 In North America, IBM in the United States released in June the open source version of OpenTM/2, which originated from the IBM Translation Manager. OpenTM/2 integrated with several aspects of the end-to-end translation workflow. 125 Partnering with LISA (Localization Industry Standards Association), Welocalize, Cisco, and Linux Solution Group e.V.

121 122 123 124 125

http://www.atril.com MultiLingual, “SDL Trados Studio,” MultiLingual (10 March 2010). http://www.xtm-intl.com http://www.alchemysoftware.ie; http://www.promt.com http://www.opentm2.org

134

Translation Technology on the Fast Track

(LiSoG), IBM aimed to create an open source project that provided a full-featured, enterprise-level translation workbench environment for professional translators on the OpenTM/2 project. According to LISA, OpenTM / 2 not only provided a public and open implementation of translation workbench environment that served as the reference implementation of existing localization industry standards, such as TMX, it also aimed to provide standardized access to globalization process management software. 126 Lingotek upgraded in July its Collaborative Translation Platform (CTP) to a software-as-a-service product which combined machine translation, real-time community translation, and management tools. 127 MadCap Software, Inc. released in September MadCap Lingo v4.0, which had a new utility for easier translation alignment and a redesigned translation editor. Systran introduced in December Desktop 7 Product Suite, which included the Premium Translator, Business Translator, Office Translator and Home Translator. Among them, Premium Translator and Business Translator were equipped with translation memory and project management features. In South America, Maxprograms in Uruguay released in April Swordfish II, which incorporated Anchovy version 1.0-0 as glossary manager and term extraction tool, and added support for SLD XLIFF files from Trados Studio 2009 and Microsoft Visio XML Drawings, etc.128 In 2011, computer-aided translation was active in Europe and America. In Europe, ATRIL / PowerLing in France released in May Déja vu X2, a new version of its computer-assisted translation system, which had new features such as DeepMiner data mining and translation engine, SmartView Interface and a multi-file and multi-format alignment tool.129 In June, Wordfast Classic v6.0 was released with features such as the ability to share TMs and glossaries with an unlimited number of users, improved quality assurance, AutoComplete, and improved support for Microsoft Word 2007/2010 and Mac Word 2011.130 In Luxembourg, the Directorate-General for Translation of the European Commission released in January its one million segments of multilingual Translation Memory in

126

http://www.lisa.org; LISA, “IBM and the Localization Industry Standards Association Partner to Deliver Open-Source Enterprise-Level Translation Tools,” (2010), retrieved from http://www.lisa.org/OpenTM2.1557.0.html. 127 MultiLingual, “Collaborative Translation Platform 5.0,” MultiLingual (27 July 2010). 128 http://www.maxprograms.com 129 MultiLingual, “Déjà vu X2,” MultiLingual (24 May 2011). 130 http://www.wordfast.net

Chan Sin-wai

135

TMX format in 231 language pairs. Translation units were extracted from one of its large shared translation memories in Euramis (European Advanced Multilingual Information System). This memory contained most, but not all, of the documents of the Acquis Communautaire, the entire body of European legislation, plus some other documents which were not part of the Acquis. In Switzerland, the STAR Group released in February Service Pack 4 for Transit NXT and TermStar NXT. Transit NXT Service Pack 4 contained the following improvements: support of MS Office 2010, Support of Quicksilver 3.5l, and Preview for MS Office formats. In Eastern Europe, Kilgray Translation Technologies in Hungary released in June TM Repository, the world’s first tool-independent Translation Memory management system.131 Kilgray Translation Technologies later released MemoQ v 5.0 with the AuditTrail concept to the workflow, which added new improvements like versioning, tracking changes (to show the difference of two versions), X-translate (to show changes on source texts), the Post Translation Analysis on formatting tags.132 In the United Kingdom, XTM International released in March XTM 5.5, providing both Cloud and On-Premise versions, which contained customizable workflows, a new search and replace feature in Translation Memory Manager and the redesign of XTM Workbench.133 In North America, MultiCorpora R&D Inc. in Canada released in May MutliTrans Prism, a translation management system (TMS) for project management, translation memory, and terminology management.134 In 2012, the development of computer-aided translation in various places was considerable and translation technology continued its march to globalization. In North America, the development of computer-aided translation was fast. In Canada, MultiCorpora, a provider of multilingual asset management solutions, released in June MultiTrans Prism version 5.5. The new version features a web editing server that extends control of the management of translation processes, and it can be fully integrated with content management systems. In September, Terminotix launched LogiTerm 5.2.

131

http://kilgray.com Kilgrary Translation Technologies, “What’s New in MemoQ,” (2011), retrieved from http://kilgray.com/products/memoq/whatsnew on 11 July 2011. 133 http://www.xtm-intl.com 134 MultiCorpora Inc., “MultiCorpora Launches New Translation Management System,” (2011), retrieved from MultiCorpora’s website at http://www.multicorpora.com/news/multicorpora-launches-new-translation-manag ement-system on 25 August 2011. 132

136

Translation Technology on the Fast Track

Its upgrades and new features, including indexing TMX files directly in Bitext database, reinforced the fuzzy match window, and adjusted buttons.135 In December, MultiCorpora added new machine translation integrations to its MultiTrans Prism. The integration options include SYSTRAN, Google, and Microsoft.136 In Asia, there was considerable progress in computer-aided translation in China. Transn Information Technology Co., Ltd. released TCAT 2.0 as freeware early in the year. New features of this software include the Translation Assistant (侣嬗≑䎮) placed at the sidebar of Microsoft Office, pre-translation with TM and termbase, source segment selection by highlighting (冒≽⍾⎍).137 In May, Foshan Snowman Computer Co. Ltd. released Snowman 1.27 and Snowman Collaborative Translation Platform (暒Ṣ CAT ⋼⎴侣嬗⸛冢) free version. The platform offers a server for a central translation memory and termbase so that all the users can share their translations and terms, and the reviewers can view the translations simultaneously with translators. It also supports online instant communication, document management and online forum (BBS). 138 In July, Chengdu Urelite Tech Co. Ltd. (ㆸ悥⃒嬗ᾉ〗㈨埻㚱旸℔⎠), which was founded in 2009, released Transmate, including the standalone edition (beta), internet edition and project management system. The standalone edition was freely available for download from the company’s website. The standalone edition of Transmate is targeted at freelancers and this beta release offers basic CAT functions, such as using TM and terminology during translation. It has features such as pre-translation, creating file-based translation memory, bilingual text export and links to an online dictionary website and Google MT.139 Heartsome Translation Studio 8.0 was released by the Shenzhen Office of Heartsome in China. Its new features include pre-saving MT results and external proofreading file export in RTF format. The new and integrated interface also allows the user to work in a single unified environment in the translation process.140

135 136 137 138 139 140

http://terminotix.com/news/newsletter http://www.multicorpora.com http://www.transn.com http://www.gcys.cn http://www.urelitetech.com.cn http://www.heartsome.net

Chan Sin-wai

137

In Japan, Ryan Ginstrom developed and released Align Assist 1.5, which is a freeware to align source and translation files to create translation memory. The main improvement of this version is the ability to set the format of a cell text.141 In October, LogoVista Corporation released LogoVista PRO 2013. It can support Microsoft Office 2010 64-bit and Windows 8. More Japanese and English words are included and the total number of words in dictionaries is 6.47 million.142 In Europe, the developments of computer-aided translation systems are noteworthy. In the Czech Republic, MemSource Technologies released in January MemSource Editor for translators as a free tool to work with MemSource Cloud and MemSource Server. The Editor is multiplatform and can be currently installed on Windows and Macintosh.143 In April, this company released MemSource Cloud 2.0. MemSource Plugin, the former CAT component for Microsoft Word, is replaced by the new MemSource Editor, a standalone translation editor. Other new features include adding comments to segments, version control, translation workflow (only in the Team edition), better quality assurance and segmentation.144 In December, MemSource Technologies released MemSource Cloud 2.8. It now encrypts all communication by default. This release also includes redesigned menus and tools. Based on the data about previous jobs, MemSource can suggest relevant linguistic options for translation jobs.145 In France, Wordfast LLC released in April Wordfast Pro 3.0. Its new features include bilingual review, batch TransCheck, filtering of one hundred percent matches, splitting and merging of TXML files, reversing of source/target and pseudo-translation.146 In June Atril and PowerLing updated Déjà Vu X2. Its new features include an incorporated PDF converter and a CodeZapper Macro.147 In Germany, Across Language Server v 5.5 was released in November. New features such as linguistic supply chain management are designed to make project and resources planning more transparent. The new version also supports the translation of display texts in various formats, and allows

141 142 143 144 145 146 147

http://felix-cat.com http://www.logovista.co.jp http://www.memsource.com http://blog.memsource.com http://www.memsource.com http://www.wordfast.com http://www.artil.com

138

Translation Technology on the Fast Track

the protection of the translation units to ensure uniform use.148 In Hungary, Kilgray Translation Technologies released in July MemoQ 6.0 with new features like predictive typing and several new online workflow concepts such as FirstAccept (assign job to the first translator who accepted it on the online workflow), GroupSourcing, Slicing, and Subvendor group.149 In December, the company released MemoQ 6.2. Its new features include SDL package support, InDesign support with preview, new quality assurance checks and the ability to work with multiple machine translation engines at the same time.150 In Luxembourg, Wordbee in October designed a new business analysis module for its Wordbee translation management system, which provides a new dashboard where over a hundred real-time reports are generated for every aspect of the localization process.151 In Switzerland, STAR Group released Service Pack 6 for Transit NXT and TermStar NXT. The improvements of Service Pack 6 of Transit NXT contain the support of Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, QuarkXPress 9.0-9.2, InDesign CS6, integrated OpenOffice spell check dictionaries, ten additional Indian languages.152 In the United Kingdom, XTM International, a developer of XML authoring and translation tools, released in April XTM Suite 6.2. Its updates include a full integration with the machine translation systems Asia Online Language Studio and the content management system XTRF. In October, the company released XTM Suite 7.0 and a new XTM Xchange module in XTM Cloud intended to increase the supply chain. Version 7.0 includes project management enhancements, allowing users to group files, assign translators to specific groups or languages, and create different workflows for different languages.153 During this period, the following trends are of note. (1) The Systematic Compatibility with Windows and Microsoft Office Of the sixty-seven currently available systems on the market, only one does not run on the Windows operation systems. Computer-aided translation systems have to keep up with the advances in Windows and

148 149 150 151 152 153

http://www.across.net http://kilgray.com http://kilgray.com http://www.wordbee.com http://www.star-group.net http://www.xtm-intl.com

Chan Sin-wai

139

Microsoft Office for the sake of compatibility. Wordfast 5.51j, for example, was released in April 2007, three months after the release of Windows Vista, and Wordfast 5.90v was released in July 2010 to support Microsoft Office Word 2007 and 2010. (2) The Integration of Workflow Control into CAT Systems Besides reusing or recycling translations of repetitive texts and text-based terminology, systems developed during this period added functions such as project management, spell check, quality assurance, and content control. Take SDL Trados Studio 2011 as an example. This version, which was released in September 2011, has a spell checking function for a larger number of languages and PerfectMatch 2.0 to track changes of the source documents. Most of the systems on the market can also perform “context match,” which is the identical match with identical surrounding segments in the translation document and in the translation memory. (3) The Availability of Networked or Online Systems Because of the fast development of new information technologies, most CAT systems during this period were sever-based, web-based and even cloud-based CAT systems, which had a huge storage of data. By the end of 2012, there were fifteen cloud-based CAT systems available on the market for individuals or enterprises, such as Lingotek Collaborative Translation Platform, SDL World Server, and XTM Cloud. (4) The Adoption of New Formats in the Industry Data exchange between different CAT systems has always been a difficult issue to handle as different systems have different formats, such as dvmdb for Déjà Vu X, and tmw for SDL Trados Translator’s Workbench 8.0. These programme-specific formats cannot be mutually recognizable, which makes it impossible to share data in the industry. In the past, the Localization Industry Standards Association (LISA) played a significant role in developing and promoting data exchange standards, such as SRX (Segmentation Rules eXchange), TMX (Translation Memory eXchange), TBX (Term-Bese eXchange) and XLIFF (XML Localisation Interchange File Format). 154 It can be estimated that the compliance of industry

154

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XLIFF

140

Translation Technology on the Fast Track

standards is also one of the future directions for better data exchange.

[VI] Translation Technology on a Fast Track: Comparing the Developments of Human Translation and Computer Translation with Computer-Aided Translation The speed of the development of translation technology in recent decades can be seen through comparing it with human translation and computer translation. (1)

The Development of Human Translation

Human translation, in comparison with computer translation and computer-aided translation, has taken a considerably longer time to develop and at a slower pace. The history of human translation, if we leave aside the legendary Tower of Babel, can be traced to 1122 B.C. when, during the Zhou dynasty (1122–255 B.C.), a foreign affairs bureau known as Da xing ren ⣏埴Ṣ was established to provide interpreting services for government officials to communicate with the twelve non-Han minorities along the borders of the Zhou empire.155 This is probably the first piece of documentary evidence of official interpreting in the world. Since then the world of translation has witnessed a number of major events. In 285 B.C., there was the first partial translation of the Bible from Hebrew into Greek in the form of the Septuagint.156 In 250 B.C., the contribution of Andronicus Livius to translation made him the “father of translation.”157 In 67, Zhu Falan made the first translation of a Buddhist sutra in China.158 In 1141, Robert de Retines produced the first translation

155

Chan Sin-wai, A Chronology of Translation in China and the West (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2009), 29–30. 156 Roland H. Worth, Bible Translations: A History through Source Documents. (Jefferson, North Carolina, and London: McFarland and Company, Inc., Publishers, 1992): 5–19. 157 Louis G. Kelly, “Latin Tradition,” in Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, ed. Mona Baker (London and New York: Routledge, 1998), 495–504. 158 ˪ᷕ⚳侣嬗⭞娆℠˫(A Dictionary of Translators in China), ed. A Dictionary of Translators in China Editorial Committee˪ᷕ⚳侣嬗⭞娆℠˫䶐⮓䳬 (Beijing: China Translation and Publishing Corporation ᷕ⚳⮵⢾侣嬗↢䇰℔⎠, 1988), 103.

Chan Sin-wai

141

of the Koran in Latin.159 In 1382, John Wycliffe made the first complete translation of the Bible in English.160 In 1494, William Tyndale was the first scholar to translate the Bible from the original Hebrew and Greek into English.161 In 1611, the King James Version of the Bible was published.162 In 1814, Robert Morrison made the first translation of the Bible into Chinese. 163 In 1945, simultaneous interpreting was invented at the Nuremberg Trials held in Germany.164 In 1946, the United Bible Societies was founded in New York.165 In 1952, the first conference on machine translation was held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.166 In 1953, the Fédération Internationale des Traducteurs (FIT), or International Association of Translators, and the Association Internationale des Interprètes de Conférence (AIIC), or the International Association of Conference Interpreters, were both founded in Paris.167 In 1964, with the publication of Toward a Science of Translating, in which the concept of dynamic equivalent translation was proposed, Eugene A. Nida was referred to as the “Father of Translation Theory,”168 and the title has since remained his. In 1972, James S. Holmes proposed the first framework for translation studies. 169 In 1978, Even-Zohar proposed the Polysystem

159

Chan, A Chronology of Translation, 47. Worth, Bible Translations, 66–70. 161 Jean Deslisle and Judith Woodsworth, eds. Translators through History (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company and UNESCO Publishing, 1995), 33–35. 162 Ward Allen, ed. Translating for King James (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press), 1969. 163 Chan, A Chronology of Translation, 73. 164 Francesca Gaiba, The Origins of Simultaneous Interpretation: The Nuremberg Trial (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1998). 165 Chan, A Chronology of Translation, 117. 166 Hutchins, Early Years in Machine Translation, 6, 34–35. 167 Rene Haeseryn, “The International Federation of Translators (FIT) and Its Leading Role in the Translation Movement in the World,” in Roundtable Conference FIT-UNESCO: Problems of Translator in Africa, ed. Rene Haeseryn (Belgium: FIT, 1989), 379–84; Mary Phelan, The Interpreter’s Resource (Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd., 2001). 168 Eugene A. Nida, Toward a Science of Translating (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1964). 169 James S. Homes, “The Name and Nature of Translation Studies,” in Translation across Cultures, ed. Gideon Toury (New Delhi: Bahri Publications: Pvt. Ltd., 1972, 1987), 9–24; James S. Holmes, “The Name and Nature of Translation Studies,” in Translated! Papers on Literary Translation and Translation Studies, ed. James S. Holmes (Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam, 1988), 93–98. 160

142

Translation Technology on the Fast Track

Theory.170 In 1995, the first encyclopedia of translation was edited by Chan Sin-wai and David E. Pollard.171 A total of some seventeen major events took place during the entire history of human translation, which is now 3,133 years old. This shows that in terms of the mode of production, human translation has remained unchanged for a very long time. (2)

The Development of Computer Translation

In comparison with human translation, computer translation has advanced enormously since its inception in the 1940s. This can be clearly seen from an analysis of the countries with research and development in computer translation during the last seventy years. Available information shows that an increasing number of countries have been involved in the research and development of computer translation. This is very much in evidence since the beginning of computer translation in 1947. Actually, long before the Second World War was over and the computer was invented, Georges Artsrouni, a French-Armenian engineer, created a translation machine known as “Mechanical Brain.” Later in the year, Petr Petroviþ Smirnov-Troyanskij (1894–1950), a Russian scholar, was issued a patent in Moscow on 5 September for his construction of a machine which could select and print words while translating from one language into another or into several others at the same time.172 But it was not until the years after the Second World War that the climate was ripe for the development of machine translation. The invention of computers, the rise of information theory, and the advances in cryptology all indicated that machine translation could be a reality. In 1947, the idea of using machines in translating was proposed in March by Warren Weaver (1894–1978), who was at that time the vice-president of the Rockerfeller Foundation, and Andrew D. Booth of Birkbeck College of the University of London. They wanted to make use of the newly invented computer to translate natural languages. Historically speaking, their efforts were significant in several ways. It was the first application of the newly

170

Itamar Even-Zohar, Papers in Historical Poetics (Tel Aviv: The Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1978), 21–27. 171 Chan Sin-wai and David E. Pollard, eds., An Encyclopaedia of Translation: Chinese-English. English-Chinese (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1995/2001). 172 Chan, A Dictionary of Translation Technology, 289.

Chan Sin-wai

143

invented computers to non-numerical tasks, i.e., translation. It was the first application of the computer to natural languages, which was later to be known as computational linguistics. It was also one of the first areas of research in the field of artificial intelligence. The following year witnessed the rise of information theory and its application to translation studies. The role of this theory has been to help translators recognize the function of concepts such as information load, implicit and explicit information, and redundancy.173 On 15 July, Warren Weaver, director of the Rockefeller Foundation’s natural sciences division, wrote a memorandum for peer review outlining the prospects of machine translation, known in history as “Weaver’s Memorandum,” in which he made four proposals to produce translations better than word-for-word translations.174 The first machine translation system, the Georgetown-IBM system for Russian-English translation, was developed in the United States in June 1952. The system was developed by Leon Dostert and Paul Garvin of Georgetown University and Cuthbert Hurd and Peter Sheridan of IBM Corporation.175 Russia was the second country to develop machine translation. At the end of 1954, the Steklov Mathematical Institute of the Academy of Sciences began work on machine translation under the directorship of Aleksej Andreeviþ Ljapunov (1911–1973), a mathematician and computer expert. The first system developed was known as FR-I, which was a direct translation system and was also considered one of the first generation of machine translation systems. The system ran on STRELA, one of the first generation of computers.176 In the same year, the United Kingdom became the third country to engage in machine translation. A research group on machine translation, Cambridge Language Research Group, led by Margaret Masterman, was set up at Cambridge University, where an experimental system was tried on English-French translation.177 173 Claude L. Shannon and Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1949); Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1954). 174 Hutchins, Early Years in Machine Translation, 18–20. 175 W. John Hutchins, Machine Translation: Past, Present, Future (Chichester: Ellis Horwood, 1986), 70–78. 176 Hutchins, Early Years in Machine Translation, 197–204. 177 Yorick Wilks, “Magaret Masterman,” in Hutchins, Early Years in Machine Translation, 279–98.

144

Translation Technology on the Fast Track

In 1955, Japan was the fourth country to develop machine translation. Kyushu University was the first university in Japan to begin research on machine translation.178 This was followed by China, which began research on machine translation with a Russian-Chinese translation algorithm jointly developed by the Institute of Linguistics and the Institute of Computing Technology.179 Two years later, Charles University in Czechoslovakia began to work on English-Czech machine translation.180 These six countries were the forerunners in machine translation. Other countries followed suit. In 1959, France set up the Centre d’Études de la Traduction Automatique (CETA) for machine translation.181 In 1960, East Germany had its Working Group for Mathematical and Applied Linguistics and Automatic Translation, while in Mexico, research on machine translation was conducted at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico). 182 In 1962, Hungary’s Hungarian Academy of Sciences conducted research on machine translation. In 1964 in Bulgaria, the Mathematical Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia set up the section of “Automatic Translation and Mathematical Linguistics” to conduct work on machine translation.183 In 1965, the Canadian Research Council set up CETADOL (Centre de Traitement Automatique des Données Linguistiques) to work on an English-French translation system.184

178

Makoto Nagao, “Machine Translation: The Japanese Experience,” in Progress in Machine Translation, ed. Sergei Nirenburg (Amsterdam: IOS Press, 1993), 203–8. 179 Dong Zhendong 吋㋗㜙, “MT Research in China,” in New Directions in Machine Translation, eds. Dan Maxwell, Klaus Schubert and Toon Witkam (Dordrecht-Holland: Foris Publications, 1988), 85–91; Feng Zhiwei 楖⽿῱, “Zhongguo de fanyi jishu: Guoqu, xianzai he jianglai”˨ᷕ⚳䘬侣嬗㈨埻烉忶⍣ˣ 䎦⛐␴⮯Ἦ˩(“Translation Technology in China: Past, Present, and Future”), in Jisuanji yuyanxue wenji ˪ 妰 䬿 㨇 婆 妨 ⬠ 㔯 普 ˫ (Essays on Computational Linguistics), eds. Huang Changning 湫 㖴 ⮏ and Dong Zhendong (Beijing: Tsinghua University Press 㶭厗⣏⬠↢䇰䣦, 1999), 335–440; Liu Yongquan et al. ∱㸏㱱䫱, Zhongguo de jiqi fanyi˪ᷕ⚳䘬㨇☐侣嬗˫(Machine Translation in China) (Shanghai: Knowledge Press, 1984), 1–14. 180 http://www.cuni.czġ 181 Chan Sin-wai, A Chronology of Translation, 300. 182 http://www.unam.mx 183 http://www.bas.bg; Hutchins, Machine Translation, 205–6. 184 Hutchins, Machine Translation, 224.

Chan Sin-wai

145

But with the publication of the ALPAC Report prepared by the Automatic Language Processing Advisory Committee of the National Academy of Sciences, which concluded with the comment that there was “no immediate or predictable prospect of useful machine translation,” funding for machine translation in the United States was drastically cut and interest in machine translation waned considerably.185 Still, sporadic efforts were made in machine translation. An important system was developed in the United States by Peter Toma, previously of Georgetown University, known as SYSTRAN, an acronym for System Translation. To this day, this system is still one of the most established and popular systems on the market. In Hong Kong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong set up the Hung On-To Research Laboratory for Machine Translation to conduct research into machine translation and developed a practical machine translation system known as “The Chinese University Language Translator,” abbreviated as CULT.186 In Canada, the TAUM group at Montreal developed a system for translating public weather forecasts known as TAUM-METEO, which became operative in 1977. In the 1980s, the most important translation system developed was the EUROTRA system, which could translate all official EEC languages.187 185

ALPAC, Language and Machines; Warwick, “An Overview of Post-ALPAC Developments,” 22–37. 186 Loh Shiu-chang, “Machine-aided Translation from Chinese to English,” United College Journal 12, no. 13 (1975): 143–55; Loh Shiu-chang, “CULT: Chinese University Language Translator,” American Journal of Computational Linguistics, Microfiche, 46 (1976a): 46–50; Loh Shiu-chang, “Translation of Three Chinese Scientific Texts into English by Computer,” ALLC Bulletin 4, no. 2 (1976b): 104–5; Loh Shiu-chang, Kong Luan and Hung Hing-sum, “Machine Translation of Chinese Mathematical Articles,” ALLC Bulltein 6, no. 2 (1978): 111–20; Loh Shiu-chang and Kong Luan, “An Interactive On-line Machine Translation System (Chinese into English),” in Translating and the Computer, ed. Barbara M. Snell (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1979): 135–48. 187 Douglas J. Arnold and Louis des Tombe, “Basic Theory and Methodology in EUROTRA,” Machine Translation: Theoretical and Methodological Issues, ed. Sergei Nirenburg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 114–35; R. I. Johnson, Margaret King and Louis des Tombe, “Eurotra: A Multiligual System under Development,” Computational Linguistics 11, nos. 2–3, (1985): 155–69; Margaret King, EUROTRA: An Attempt to Achieve Multilingual MT (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1982); Margaret King, ed., Machine Translation Today: The State of the Art (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1987), 373–91; Peter Behrendt Lau, “Eurotra: Past, Present and Future,” in Translating and the Computer 9: Potential and Practice, ed. Catriona Picken (London: The Association for Information Management, 1988), 186–91; Bente Maegaard, “EUROTRA: The

146

Translation Technology on the Fast Track

In 1983, Allen Tucker, Sergei Nirenburg, and others developed at Colgate University an AI-based multilingual machine translation system known as TRANSLATOR to translate four languages, namely English, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish. This was the beginning of knowledge-based machine translation in the United States.188 The following year, Fujitsu produced ATLAS/I and ATLAS/II translation systems for translation between Japanese and English in Japan, while Hitachi and Market Intelligence Centre (QUICK) developed the ATHENE English-Japanese machine translation system.189 In 1985, the ArchTran machine translation system for translation between Chinese and English was launched in Taiwan and was one of the first commercialized English-Chinese machine translation systems in the world.190 In the United States, the METAL (Mechanical Translation and Analysis of Languages) system for translation between English and German, supported by the Siemens Company in Munich since 1978 and developed at the University of Texas, Austin, became operative. 191 In China, the TranStar English-Chinese Machine

Machine Translation Project of the European Communities,” Literary and Linguistic Computing 3, no. 2 (1988): 61–65; Bente Maegaard and Sergei Perschke, “Eurotra: General Systems Design,” Machine Translation 6, no. 2 (1991): 73–82; Harold L. Somers, “Eurotra Special Issue,” Multilingual 5, no.3 (1986), 129–77; Andrew Way, Ian Crookston and Jane Shelton, “A Typology of Translation Problems for Eurotra Translation Machines,” Machine Translation 12, no. 4 (1997): 323–74. 188 http://www.colgate.edu 189 Chan, A Chronology of Translation, 223. 190 Chen Shuchuan, Chang Jing-shin, Wang Jong-nae and Su Keh-yih, “ArchTran: A Corpus-based Statistics-oriented English-Chinese Machine Translation System,” in Progress in Machine Translation, ed. Sergei Nirenburg (Amsterdam: IOP Press, 1993), 87–98. 191 F. Deprez, G. Adriaens, B. Depoortere and G. de Braekeleer, “Experiences with METAL at the Belgian Ministry of the Interior,” Meta 39, no.1 (1994): 206–12; Winfred P. Lehmann, Winfield S. Bennett, Jonathan Slocum et al. The METAL System (New York: Griffiss Air Force Base, 1981); John Lehrberger, The Linguistic Model: General Aspects (Montreal: TAUM Group, University of Montreal, 1981); Patrick Little, “METAL炼Machine Translation in Practice,” in Translation and the Computer 11: Preparing for the Next Decade, ed. Catriona Picken (London: The Association for Information Management, 1990), 94–107; Jocelyn Liu and Joseph Liro, “The METAL English-to-German System: First Progress Report,” Computers and Translation 2, no. 4, (1987): 205–18; Thomas Schneider, “User Driven Development: METAL as an Integrated Multilingual System,” Meta 37, no. 4 (1992): 583–94; Jonathan Slocum, Winfield S. Bennett, J. Bear, M. Morgan and Rebecca Root, “METAL: The LRC Machine Translation System,” in Machine

Chan Sin-wai

147

Translation System, the first machine-translation product in China, developed by China National Computer Software and Technology Service Corporation, was commercially available in 1988. 192 In Taiwan, the BehaviorTran, an English-Chinese machine translation system, was also launched in the same year. In the 1990s, Saarbrucken in Germany formed the largest and the most established machine translation group in 1996. The SUSY (Saarbrücker Ubersetzungssystem / The Saarbrücken Machine Translation System) project for German to English and Russian to German machine translation was developed between 1972 and 1986. (rz.uni-sb.de) In 1997, Dong Fang Kuai Che 㜙㕡⾓干 (Orient Express), a machine translation system developed by the China Electronic Information Technology Ltd. in China, was commercially available, 193 while in Taiwan, TransBridge was developed for internet translation from English into Chinese.194 The first year of the twenty-first century witnessed the development of BULTRA (BULgarian TRAnslator), the first English-Bulgarian machine translation tool, by Pro Langs in Bulgaria.195 What has been presented above shows very clearly that from the beginning of computer translation in 1947 until 1957, six countries were involved in the research and development of computer translation, which included Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Georgetown University in the United States in 1952, Academy of Sciences in Russia and Cambridge University in the United Kingdom in 1954, Kyushu University in Japan in 1955, Institute of Linguistics in China in 1956, and Charles University in Czechoslovakia in 1957. By 2007, it was found that of the 193 countries in the world, thirty had conducted research on computer or computer-aided translation, nine actively. This means that around 16 percent of all the countries in the world have been engaged in computer translation, 30 percent of which are active in research and development. The thirty-one countries which have been engaged in the research and development of computer translation are: Belgium, Brazil,

Translation Today: The State of the Art, ed. Margaret King (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1987), 319–50; John S. White, “The Research Environment in the METAL Project,” in Machine Translation: Theoretical and Methodological Issues, ed. Sergei Nirenburgh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 225–46. 192 http://www.transtar.com.cn 193 Chan, A Dictionary of Translation Technology, 336. 194 http://www.transbridge.com.tw 195 Chan, A Dictionary of Translation Technology, 339.

148

Translation Technology on the Fast Track

Bulgaria, Canada, China, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Macau, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Poland, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tunisia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Of these, the most active countries are China and Japan in Asia, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Russia in Europe, and Canada and the United States in North America. The huge increase in the number of countries engaged in computer translation and the fast development of systems for different languages and language pairs show that computer translation has advanced by leaps and bounds in the last sixty-five years.

[VII] Conclusion It should be noted, that computer-aided translation is growing rapidly in all parts of the world. Drastic changes have taken place in the field of translation since the inception of translation technology in the 1980s. In 1988, as mentioned above, we only had the Trados system that was produced in Europe. Now we have more than sixty-seven systems developed in different countries, including Asian countries such as China, Japan, and India, and northern American countries, such as Canada and the United States. In the 1980s, very few people had any ideas about computer-aided translation, let alone translation technology. Now, it is estimated that there are around 200,000 CAT translators in Europe, and more than 6,000 large corporations in the world handle their language problems with the use of corporate or global management computer-aided translation systems. At the beginning, computer-aided translation systems only had standalone editions. Now, there are over seventeen different types of systems on the market. According to my research, the number of commercially available computer-aided translation systems from 1984 to 2012 is eighty-six. Several observations on these systems can be made. Firstly, about three computer-aided translation systems have been produced every year during the last twenty-eight years. Secondly, because of rapid changes in the market, nineteen computer-aided translation systems failed to survive in the keen competition, and the total number of current commercial systems stands at sixty-seven. Thirdly, almost half of the computer-aided translation systems have been developed in Europe, accounting for 49.38 percent, while 27.16 percent of them have been produced in America.

Chan Sin-wai

149

All these figures show that translation technology has been on the fast track in the last five decades. It will maintain its momentum for many years to come.

LEARNING CHINESE EXPRESSIONS THROUGH TRANSLATION CHAOFEN SUN DEPARTMENT OF EAST ASIAN LANGUAGES AND CULTURES, STANFORD UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF CHINESE STUDIES BEIJING LANGUAGE AND CULTURE UNIVERSITY

[I] Introduction This paper discusses how translation can fully be utilized to enhance Chinese language teaching and learning. As a matter of fact, translation has always been part of foreign language education, despite the popularity of audio-lingual and other communicative approaches in language education over the last fifty years or so. In this paper, it is argued that if appropriately utilized, a learner can stand to reap a remarkable benefit from translation to enhance his learning of new words and set expressions either on one’s own or in a language classroom. Furthermore, I want to show that direct translation and free translation may actually mirror the learning process from initially dissecting a new expression with available linguistic knowledge to the ultimate full grasp of it. This is particularly relevant to Chinese studies as the Chinese script is not phonetic but logographic with a high degree of correspondence rate between morphemes and characters. This paper is divided into four sections. Section 2 introduces some relevant Chinese traditions in translation, such as yingyi 䠔 嬗 (direct translation), yiyi シ 嬗 (free translation), etc., and how, from the perspectives of direct, or free, translation, newly created Chinese words and phrases (neologisms) for things foreign have fared over the last century. Sections 3 and 4 are two separate case studies of “lian/mianzi 共/ 朊⫸” (face) and “yisi シ⿅” (meaning). Section 4 is the conclusion.

152

Learning Chinese Expressions through Translation

[II] Translation In the Chinese tradition, direct translation yingyi and free translation yiyi have been juxtaposed as two drastically opposing strategies. For example, about the time of the May-Fourth movement, Lu Xun1 argued that the English expression fair play was best rendered into Chinese as “fei e po lai 屣⌬㻹岜ĭ” using the direct translation method, as opposed to Lin Yutang’s free translation with the Chinese idiom “buyao luo jing xia shi ᶵ天句ḽᶳ䞛” (not-want-descend-well-fall-rock). The transliteration “屣 ⌬ 㻹 岜 ” represents an extreme strategy of direct translation as the combination of these characters does not make any sense in Chinese. On the other hand, Lin Yutang’s free translation is not preferred by most as a good translation of fair play either. It is necessary to note that at the time of the above debate Lu Xun represented a radical group of influential intellectuals who believed that the salvation of China would never happen if the Chinese script was not replaced by a phonetic system resembling the Western languages. Interestingly, the application of the English fair play to Google Translate yields “gongping jingzheng ℔⸛䪞䇕” (public-equalcompete-strive), which represents a more modern translation of the English phrase. In this paper, unlike what Lu Xun advocated, zhiyi 䚜 嬗 (direct translation) is understood to be a kind of morpheme-to-morpheme translation, characteristic of the Chinese writing script. For example, each of the four syllables in “℔⸛䪞䇕” (public-equal-compete-strive) signals four Chinese morphemes, four minimal units of meaning in Chinese. Of the 4,800 morphemes commonly used in modern Chinese, 87.5 percent of them have a one-to-one correspondence between characters and morphemes, 10.2 percent have a one-to-two correspondence, and 1.7 percent of them have a one-to-three correspondence, etc.2 In other words, Chinese characters correspond more closely to meaningful units, making its script a very useful means in disambiguating all of the homophonous morphemes in the language. Over the last century, most of the common neologisms from Western culture originally transliterated in the fashion of “屣⌬㻹岜,” have been replaced by semantic compounds utilizing Chinese characters with morphemes approximating the original meaning of a Western word such 1

Lu Xun 欗彭, “Fen, lun ‘fei e po lai’ yinggai huanxing”˨⡛Ʉ婾“屣⌬㻹岜”ㅱ 娚䶑埴˩, Mangyuan˪卥⍇˫Bi-monthly Journal 1 (10 January 1926). 2 Chen Ping, Modern Chinese (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

Chaofen Sun

153

as “ ℔ ⸛ 䪞 䇕 ” replacing the meaningless combination “ 屣 ⌬ 㻹 岜 ” (expense-hardship-pour-rely) as a translation of fair play. That is, over time, free translation has triumphed over direct translation. democracy: science: telephone: microphone:

⽟嫐⃳㉱大 virtue-plan-overcome-pull-west Æ 㮹ᷣ people-master 岥】㕗 compete-grace-this Æ 䥹⬠ discipline-study ⽟⼳桐 virtue-rule-wind Æ 暣娙 electric-word 湍⃳桐 wheat-overcome-wind Æ 娙䫺 word-tube

This historical trend itself can be taken to be highly suggestive of the ways the Chinese people think culturally in expressing themselves. At first, when the Chinese people came into contact with Western culture, they may not have been able to understand fully what various Western terms meant and how they should be used, so, transliterations in the language were common. As they understand these Western terms better, they switch to the semantic compounds that are arguably more consistent with the Chinese way of thinking, linguistically and culturally. Those once most commonly used terms such as “de mo ke la xi ⽟嫐⃳㉱大” and “sai en si 岥】㕗” for democracy and science are now completely replaced by the more meaningful compounds “ 㮹 ᷣ ” (people-master) and “ 䥹 ⬠ ” (discipline-study). Today, no Chinese children are likely to have heard of the transliterations “de mo ke la xi” or “sai en si.” The following two sections discuss two cases demonstrating how direct and free translations from Chinese to English, resembling the historical changes over the last century in translating terms not native in China, and effective use of these two translation strategies can be of tremendous benefit to students of Chinese.

[III] Translating Expressions with 共 and 朊⫸ (face) “Lian 共 ” literally means “face” in Standard Chinese, as in the expression “xi lian 㲿共” (to wash the face). However, it certainly does not literally refer to the physical face of a human being in the following two expressions: ᶵ天共 㰺共夳Ṣ

not want face (to be shameless) no face see people (cannot face anybody)

154

Learning Chinese Expressions through Translation

As a case of metaphorical use, the notion of face totally disappears in the above free translation “to be shameless” for “buyao lian ᶵ天共.” Through direct translation, a learner can easily figure out the metaphorical links between the two “lian’s” in “buyao lian” and “mei lian jian ren 㰺共夳Ṣ.” In so doing, a learner will come to see that the Chinese lian, other than referring to the physical face, is also metaphorically used to signal a person’s moral integrity. It is said that the English phrase to lose face came into being through borrowing from Chinese. 3 But the Chinese expressions in relation to the English to lose face actually are closely related to still another word mianzi 朊⫸, 4 which is more abstract and rarely used to refer to the physical face of a person, as is revealed by the ungrammatical *“you yi zhang mianzi 㚱ᶨ⻝朊⫸.” 㚱ᶨ⻝共 have a-CL face “have a face”

*㚱ᶨ⻝朊⫸ have a-CL face

䴎朊⫸ give face “to pay respect to”

*䴎共 give face

天朊⫸ want face “to want respect ”

天共 want face “want to be respectful”

䔁朊⫸ save face “to save face”

*䔁共 save face

㍁朊⫸ earn face “to gain respect”

*㍁共 earn face

The above examples also demonstrate that, in spite of all of the sociocultural insights that one may gain from it, direct translation all by itself without free translation is not going to help a Chinese learner to develop a full understanding of the two terms “lian” and “mianzi” relating to face. It is necessarily through the free translation that a learner can come to see the semantic differences between the two face’s, “lian” and “mianzi,” not immediately discernible in direct translation. On the one hand, whereas “lian” can metaphorically imply a sense of moral integrity that can only be desired “yao lian 天共,” but not given *“gei lian 䴎共,” saved *“liu lian 䔁共,” or earned *“zheng lian ㍁共.” On the other hand, “mianzi” signals a more abstract meaning, a person’s reputation, which is culturally considered to be payable “gei mianzi 䴎朊⫸,” desirable “yao mianzi 天朊 ⫸,” savable “liu mianzi 䔁朊⫸,” and earnable “zheng mianzi ㍁朊⫸.”

3

http://en.eikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept), accessed in January 2013. 4 Mao LuMing Robert, “Beyond Politeness Theory: ‘Face’ Revisited and Renewed,” Journal of Pragmatics 21 (1994): 451–86.

Chaofen Sun

155

This sophisticated level of cultural understanding can be gained by a learner only through both direct and free translations.

[IV] Translating Expressions with シ⿅ “meaning” The Chinese term “yisi シ⿅” (meaning) is yet another interesting case in point. In the following political satire downloaded from the web,5 the diverse meanings of “yisi” seem to have been demonstrated to the fullest extent in this carefully constructed translation test supposedly designed for a student of Chinese to do: 婳妋慳ᶳ㔯ᷕ㭷ᾳˬシ⿅˭䘬シ⿅烉 旧⏮䴎柀⮶復䲭⊭㗪炻ℑṢ䘬⮵娙枿㚱シ⿅ˤ 柀⮶烉ˬἈ忁㗗Ṩ湤シ⿅烎˭ 旧⏮烉ˬ㰺Ṩ湤シ⿅炻シ⿅シ⿅ˤ˭ 柀⮶烉ˬἈ忁⯙ᶵ⣈シ⿅Ḯˤ˭ 旧⏮烉ˬ⮷シ⿅炻⮷シ⿅ˤ˭ 柀⮶烉ˬἈ忁Ṣ䛇㚱シ⿅ˤ˭ 旧⏮烉ˬ℞⮎ḇ㰺㚱⇍䘬シ⿅ˤ˭ 柀⮶烉ˬ恋ㆹ⯙ᶵ⤥シ⿅Ḯˤ˭ 旧⏮烉ˬ㗗ㆹᶵ⤥シ⿅ˤ˭ Please explain the meanings of each “yisi” in the following: When A Dai gives his boss a red envelope, the conversation between the two is rather interesting. Boss: A Dai: Boss: A Dai: Boss: A Dai: Boss: A Dai:

What is your intention? There is not any intention, just a routine thing. You are then not being truthful. Really, just a little routine thing. So you are really interesting/have an intention. As a matter of fact, there is no other meaning/intention. Then, I will be embarrassed. I should be the one who is embarrassed.

Although a Chinese person may very well consider all the meanings of “yisi” above to be all the same, they are not understandable in English unless they are freely translated into the closest English equivalents. From the free English translations of the Chinese original, at least six meanings (or English equivalents) of “yisi,” i.e., “meaning,” “intention,” “interesting,” 5

嗧咼䵚φhttp://luo.bo/4646/, accessed in January 2013.

156

Learning Chinese Expressions through Translation

“routine thing,” “truthful,” and “embarrassed,” can be easily identified. The first line of the passage is an instruction to an international student of Chinese, qing jieshi xiawen zhong mei ge “yisi” de yisi 婳妋慳ᶳ㔯ᷕ㭷 ᾳ ˬ シ⿅ ˭ 䘬シ⿅ (Please explain the meanings of each “yisi” in the following.) The “yisi” in the quote makes it clear that the core meaning of the term “yisi” is “meaning.” The second meaning for “yisi” “interesting” in the second line can be considered as contextually deduced from the usual case that interesting ideas/things must mean something. Presumably, nobody will be interested in anything that has no meaning. Similarly, the “intention” being a meaning of “yisi” in the third line is also straightforward as an intention must necessarily carry a meaning. The fourth meaning (“routine things”) of “yisi” in the fourth line may be a reason for euphemism, insinuating a hidden meaning: an unethical gift, or even bribe, that is otherwise commonly practised in a Chinese society. Furthermore, there must be a purpose, still another meaning, in doing this socially awkward thing, thereby giving rise to the fifth meaning: that is, there is obviously a hidden meaning in so doing, and the boss immediately recognizes this in the fifth line of the conversation and accuses A Dai of being not truthful to his behaviour. Finally, the sixth meaning (“embarrassed”) may come from the use of “yisi” in a formulaic expression such as “bu hao yisi, mafan ni ᶵ⤥ シ⿅炻湣 䄑ぐ……” (Excuse me, may I trouble you to…). It may be considered to be something negative whenever one has to trouble someone else to do something for oneself. Note that the English formulaic expression, Excuse me, includes an apologetic sense that embodies the meaning “being embarrassed,” which is expressed in Chinese through “bu hao yisi” (notgood-meaning). Through this analysis, we can see that direct translation corresponds to a more basic core meaning in the original language, which is essential for a learner to decipher the coding system. It is, nevertheless, through free translation that a learner may begin to learn how to use this versatile term in various culturally appropriate contexts.

[V] Conclusion This paper focuses on the utility and effectiveness of direct and free translations in Chinese language education, a vital area of East Asian studies. It is found that both strategies in translation are useful. Direct translation, understood to be morpheme-by-morpheme translation, nicely matches the linguistic nature of the Chinese script, which has a nearly 90 percent one-to-one correspondence rate between a character and a morpheme, the minimum unit of meaning. Thus, direct translation

Chaofen Sun

157

provides a window for a learner to enter into the language and culture through an expression. For example, a direct translation of the set expression “ren shan ren hai ṢⰙṢ㴟” into “people-mountain-peoplesea” promotes a cultural appreciation of the metaphorical nature of how the four morphemes are used in Chinese to vividly describe the situation. Then, inevitably a learner with English as his mother tongue wants to find out how the same idea is signalled in the English language. Such a process in locating a phrase like a big crowd is a necessary step in the development of a culturally appropriate understanding. Therefore, both approaches in translation should be fully utilized in Chinese language education.

PROBLEMS IN TRANSLATING “CIRCULATORY” TERMS FROM ARISTOTLE’S GREEK AND MENCIUS’ CHINESE: PISTIS “PERSUADING/BEING PERSUADED” AND ZHÌ 㱣 “GOVERNING/BEING GOVERNED” IN ENGLISH DOUGLAS ROBINSON FACULTY OF ARTS HONG KONG BAPTIST UNIVERSITY

David L. Hall famously distinguishes between the dualistic philosophies that have dominated Western thought and the polaristic philosophies that have tended to prevail in Chinese thought, dualistic thinking typically arising in cultures that imagine the world as having been created by a transcendental deity or spirit that is utterly unlike his or its creation: spiritual rather than physical, nondependent rather than dependent, eternal rather than mortal. Hence the importance in Western thought of dualisms like natural and supernatural, mind and matter, subject and object, self and other. By polarism Hall means a symbiotic relationship in which each “pole” or related entity is at once “of itself” (autogenerative and selfdeterminate) and “for the other”—each stands alone and requires a reciprocal relationship with its polar opposite as its condition of possibility.1 For example, self and other in a dualistic world-view tend to become not only radically but hierarchically distinct: not just subject (agent, capable of thought) and object (nonagent, incapable of thought) but right (possessing the truth, and therefore better) and wrong (mired in confusion and error, and therefore worse). In a polaristic world-view, by contrast, self and other become mutually defining, like left and right, up and down, east and west: just as west is defined as not-east and east is defined as not1

David L. Hall, Eros and Irony (Albany: SUNY Press, 1982), 118–19.

160

Problems in Translating “Circulatory” Terms

west, and as indeed one can go to the East by traveling west and to the West by traveling east, so too you are my self’s other and I am your self’s other. Martin Buber’s I-You relation is an attempt in precisely that polaristic spirit to tilt against the dualistic hegemony of the I-It in Western thought; a similar project can be found in Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion that in responding dialogically to you I incorporate your view of me into my selfconcept, see myself through your eyes, and that your view of me also contains something of my view of you.2 Now the interesting question here is not whether dualism truly is endemic to Western thought. Obviously it is. What I propose to examine briefly here, however, is what appears to be a key polar term in the work of the Western philosopher most commonly cited as one of the major founders of dualistic philosophy in the West, Aristotle’s pistis “persuading/believing,” and the problems that word typically creates for his English translators. I will also look briefly at an interesting (but not at all atypical) term in the work of Aristotle’s near-exact contemporary, Mencius’s zhì 㱣 (governing/being governed), and the problems it causes for his English translators as well. The significant point, though, is that in Hall’s terms both philosophers, whom Sino-Hellenists have constructed as emblematic of West and East as a duality rather than a polarity, use keywords that are polar rather than dualistic—or, as I will argue, actually not so much polar as circulatory.

[I] Problems in Translating pistis The central term in the Rhetoric, the keyword that most pithily sums up what Aristotle is attempting to do in the handbook, is pistis¸ which means not only “persuasion” but “means of persuasion,” and thus “proof” or “argument.” To the extent that the book is a practical guide to persuading people, therefore, it is about pisteis as the specific argumentative strategies and devices that the rhetor should learn to use to that end. This plural noun pisteis appears throughout the Rhetoric in just this sense, and is translated with great semantic consistency as “proofs” by John Henry Freese, as “modes of persuasion” or “means of persuasion” or “means of effecting persuasion” by W. Rhys Roberts, and as “proof

2

Martin Buber, I and Thouĭ transį Ronald Gregor Smith (New York: Scribner, 1937); Mikhail Bakhtin, “Discourse in the Novel,” in The Dialogic Imagination, ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), 259–422.

Douglas Robinson

161

[persuasion]” by Lane Cooper. (George Kennedy calques it as pisteis, often with explanatory notes.)3 As we have seen, however, pistis is not only persuasion; it is also belief, the result of persuasion. If we follow the English semantic pattern and take persuading and believing to be the reciprocal acts of a two-party transaction, using the same term for both would be like using the same verb for paying and being paid, or for insulting and feeling insulted, or for warning someone and being the someone who responds to the warning with extra caution. The cognitive contortions we experience in attempting to subsume both sides of such transactions into a single term are akin to trying to see the famous ambiguous image as a duck and a rabbit at once: it seems to us (English-speakers) so overwhelmingly and indeed mindparalysingly natural to apprehend persuading and believing as two separate and reciprocal actions performed by different people that we may attempt to conflate them by speeding up our semantic oscillations between them. Or we may take the tack of imagining persuader and believer to be the same person, either in the same body (talking oneself into doing something) or, more radically, in two or more bodies, yielding lurid science-fantasy scenarios in which the humans present in the pistis-event are all bee-like hive creatures controlled by a single will. The semantic polarity mapped out by pistis in Attic Greek obviously makes things a bit tricky for the Rhetoric’s English translators, who, given that English does not have a single term that would cover both the act of persuading and its desired effect, are faced with the unenviable task of rendering the term more or less consistently. A collocation like “make(-) believe” comes close, perhaps, signifying something the speaker does that elicits belief in the listener—except that the “something the speaker does” in the English term “make-believe” is not persuading but pretending, imagining. Cf. also the collocation “of the X persuasion,” as in phrases like “Christians of the Protestant persuasion,” or, humorously, “people of the female persuasion,” wherein “persuasion” seems to imply that the members of said group have been persuaded to believe in the tenets of the group, but also that the group is organized around persuasion, in leading 3

John Henry Freese, trans., The “Art” of Rhetoric, by Aristotle (London: Heinemann, 1926); Lane Cooper, trans. and ed., The Rhetoric of Aristotle (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1932); W. Rhys Roberts, trans., Rhetoric, by Aristotle, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 2152–269; George Kennedy, trans. and ed., On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse, by Aristotle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

162

Problems in Translating “Circulatory” Terms

others to share the same belief as well. The humour of “people of the female persuasion” is of course superficially that being female involves neither persuasion nor belief—the phrase jokingly assimilates a “natural” category to our assumptions about “purely” social groups. But the humour also hints at a “secondary” cultural component to biological sex, the ways in which we are socialized to sex, so that little boys are persuaded to believe that they should play with trucks and be strong and tough and not cry, etc., and little girls are persuaded to believe that they should play with dolls and love love and not be able to throw a ball, etc., and also, though largely unconsciously, that they should persuade others of their kind to believe the same things, and to ostracize those who do not conform. Judith Butler’s Bodies that Matter is a very interesting (some would say quixotic) attempt to prove that the cultural component to biological sex is not secondary but primary.4 But of course these persuasion-plus-belief connotations of “persuasion” are only vestigially felt in the specific collocation of “of the X persuasion”—and, given that “persuasion” there has been semantically reorganized to mean something like “belief-structure,” or even just “group,” what is vestigially felt must be semantically excavated, and may not persuade everyone. This obviously leaves English translators of Aristotle little recourse in dealing with pistis. In Rhetoric 1.2, for example, Aristotle writes that pantes de tas pisteis poiountai dia tou deiknunai Ɲ paradeigmata legontes Ɲ enthumƝmata.5 A literal translation of that, replacing the problematic tas pisteis with X, would read: “and all [speakers] make X through proving, speaking either examples or enthymemes.” The question is, what exactly are all speakers making by proving with examples and enthymemes? If pantes de tas pisteis poiountai “everyone makes X” had not been modified with dia tou deiknunai “through proof,” his translators would probably have rendered it “make/construct proofs,” since pisteis do often seem to be specific argumentative structures, and are often translated “proofs.” Obviously, though, making X through proof renders X problematic. What is X? The two obvious choices are “persuasion” and “belief,” and Aristotle’s best-known twentieth-century English translators give us both, Cooper, Roberts, and Kennedy choosing the former, Freese alone the latter: “men in speaking effect persuasion” (Cooper), “every one who 4

Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (London and New York: Routledge, 1993). 5 Aristotle, tekhnƝ rhetorikƝ, ed. W. D. Ross (Oxford: Clarendon, 1959), 1.2.8, 1356b6–7.

Douglas Robinson

163

effects persuasion” (Roberts), “all [speakers] produce logical persuasion” (Kennedy), but “Now all orators produce belief” (Freese).6 But of course we do not produce persuasion in English, and it is not much more idiomatic to say that “orators produce belief,” either. Cooper’s and Roberts’s shift from “produce” to “effect” works better with “persuasion,” and suggests some of the same circulatory semantics as the Greek, since “to effect persuasion” is to achieve a “belief-effect” in one’s audience. J. L. Austin would probably want to say that persuading is the speaker’s illocutionary act, and believing is the perlocutionary effect of that act in the listener; but in fact the illocutionary act (what the speaker does in speaking) in this case is not persuading but proving. Persuading and believing (what the speaker makes, or effects) are the illocutionary force and perlocutionary effect, respectively, of that act; but that force and that effect are at once coterminous (pistis as persuading-becomingbelieving) and located, as Western dualism would insist, “inside” two different social actors—or, in the “polar” thinking that is supposedly alien to Aristotle, ecologically in the emergent reciprocity between them. Polar persuading-becoming-believing is an unpredictable and ultimately uncontrollable ecological consequence or byproduct of the speaker’s illocutionary act of proving.7 Earlier in Rhetoric 1.2 Aristotle tells us that tǀn de dia tou logou porizomenǀn pisteǀn tria eidƝ estin8—or, as Kennedy translates that, “of the pisteis provided through speech there are three species.”9 The calqued pisteis there does stand in for something like the semantic complexity at which Aristotle is hinting; but in the very next sentence Aristotle complicates things for Kennedy’s strategy, implicitly referring back to the tǀn … pisteǀn that Kennedy calqued as “of the pisteis” and then giving us two more pistis-words, axiopistos “worthy of belief” and pisteuǀ “to believe.” Such are the transformations of pistis there that Kennedy cannot track them for us in English: “[There is persuasion] through character whenever the speech is spoken in such a way as to make the speaker worthy of credence [axiopiston]; for we believe [pisteuomen] fair-minded people to a greater extent and more quickly [than we do others].” 10 Kennedy’s explication of Aristotle’s implicit back-reference as “[There is 6

Cooper, The Rhetoric of Aristotle, 10; Roberts, Rhetoric, 1330; Kennedy, On Rhetoric, 40; Freese, The “Art” of Rhetoric, 19. 7 J. L. Austin, How To Do Things With Words (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975). 8 Aristotle, tekhnƝ rhetorikƝ, 1.2.3, 1356a2. 9 Kennedy, On Rhetoric, 38. 10 Kennedy, On Rhetoric, 38.

164

Problems in Translating “Circulatory” Terms

persuasion]” obviously fails to mark “persuasion” as referring back to pisteis; and axiopistos and pisteuǀ, later in that same sentence, get translated with “belief” words. Other translators fare no better (I have italicized the keywords): The orator persuades [implied tǀn … pisteǀn] by moral character when his speech is delivered in such a manner as to render him worthy of confidence [axiopistos]; for we feel confidence [pisteuomen] in a greater degree and more readily in persons of worth in regard to everything in general.11 Persuasion [implied tǀn … pisteǀn] is achieved by the speaker’s personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible [axiopistos]. We believe [pisteuomen] good men more fully and more readily than others.12 The character of the speaker is a cause of persuasion [implied tǀn … pisteǀn] when the speech is so uttered as to make him worthy of belief [axiopistos]; for as a rule we trust [pisteuomen] men of probity more, and more quickly, about things in general.13

Freese gives us “confidence” twice, but the first pistis remains “persuasion”; Roberts and Cooper give us three separate words each, though in each case the second and third (“credible”/”believe” and “belief”/”trust”) are at least roughly synonymous. Roberts could have given us “believable” and “believe,” Cooper “believe” and “belief”; but of course even this semantic conformation would not have brought the implied pisteis in the opening clause into line. Not one translator is able even to hint that behind all three words is the book’s central concept, pistis. Note too that Freese and Cooper follow Aristotle’s morphology in rendering axiopistos adjectivally, as a produced property of the speaker; Roberts shifts point of view to the listeners, who “think [the speaker] credible.” This rotating perspectivism too—the sense in which axiopistos is at once (or alternately, or “becomingly”) an attribute of the speaker and a character that is attributed to the speaker by the listeners—is part of the circularity/polarity in Aristotle’s conception. (Freese also produces a secondary semantic field in moving from “worthy of confidence” to “persons of worth”: worthies are worthy.) Is this shoddy translation? Since translators, especially of major philosophical texts, are often (perhaps somewhat pedantically, and 11

Freese, The “Art” of Rhetoric, 17. Roberts, Rhetoric, 2155. 13 Cooper, The Rhetoric of Aristotle, 8. 12

Douglas Robinson

165

unrealistically) expected to use the same target-language equivalent for every incidence of a single source-language term, the pedantic answer would be yes, this is very shoddy, especially given the fact that pistis is not some random noun but arguably the book’s defining keyword. But in this case I think the translators are justified. Given the fact that we lack a single word (or group of words derived from the same semantic root) for persuasion, belief, credibility, and trust, and that the three concepts cannot and should not be reduced to a single simplified equivalent like “makebelieve,” Aristotle’s English translators are forced to keep jumping around semantically, trying to capture whatever aspect of pistis that Aristotle seems to be working with at any given moment.

[II] Burkean Identification and the Group BodyBecoming-Mind Aristotle’s translators’ difficulties are caused by Attic Greek semantics, obviously—by what from an English standpoint seems like a semantic anomaly. Even in English, however, we should be in a position to note that persuading is a speech act that cannot be performed by a single individual: I cannot persuade you unless you are persuaded. If I claim I have persuaded you, but you insist that you remain unpersuaded, at best we have got ourselves an is-so/is-not situation, and at worst I am deluded. Persuading, as I have suggested elsewhere of such speech acts as intimidating, warning, and annoying, is definitively performed by the group, by the “group mind” of at least two people.14 The reading of Aristotle’s Rhetoric 1.2.3–6 that most famously pushes the relationship between Ɲthos and pathos into something like the realm of the group mind is Kenneth Burke’s in A Rhetoric of Motives.15 I refer to his theory of identification, according to which the speaker persuades the listener not just by creating sound proofs (logos), projecting an attractive persona (Ɲthos), and appealing to the listener’s emotions (pathos), but by identifying with the listener—in some imaginative but nevertheless powerfully transformative sense becoming the listener. Ɲthos and pathos in this light together become not so much a mask—a strategic persona fitted out with the appropriate emotions—that the rhetor dons in order to enhance his or her credibility as they do a kind of permeable shared 14

Douglas Robinson, Performative Linguistics: Speaking and Translating as Doing Things With Words (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 95–99. 15 Kenneth Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969).

166

Problems in Translating “Circulatory” Terms

identity, built and inhabited collaboratively by the rhetor and his or her audience. Burke tropes identification as consubstantiality, as “one body” or “shared body,” but specifically as the experience of a shared body, the circulation of a feeling of shared embodied self through a group. “For substance,” Burke writes, “in the old philosophies, was an act; and a way of life is an acting-together; and in acting together, men have common sensations, concepts, images, ideas, attitudes that make them consubstantial.”16 What is shared or circulated in identification, in other words, is not physical but affective substance. Hence the social phenomena that Virginia Holland describes, in her book on Burke’s radical unpacking of Aristotle, as “groups ‘magically’ persuad[ing] other groups,” or “social cohesion result[ing] without the external action of a critic who attempts to persuade.”17 What Burke teases out of Aristotle is actually rather more complicated than a notion that can be summed up with a phrase like “the group mind.” Burke specifically theorizes identification as “compensatory to division”—as “affirmed with earnestness precisely because there is division.” 18 “If men were not apart from one another,” he adds, “there would be no need for the rhetorician to proclaim their unity”19: they would be unified. (By “apartness” Burke means specifically our biological division—for example, the fact that I cannot digest the food you eat. Because our bodies are individually wrapped, we see the world through different eyes, touch it with different fingers, channel it through different metabolic processes, and so on.) But neither would there be a need for the rhetor to proclaim our unity if we were totally apart. It would in fact hardly even be conceivable for identification, and thus persuasion, to exist if it were not for the partial merging of selves that Burke calls identification. Strife and persuasion are both possible and in some sense inevitable because we are neither entirely the same nor entirely apart. Identification is an imaginary oneness, but one that is often deeply felt—a shared affective self, as I noted above—and is thus both fragile and emotionally volatile. A calm conviction of loyalty and the intense pain of betrayal are both identificatory experiences: the one a feeling of consubstantiality, the other a feeling of its dissolution. One by-product of identification is that “one body/one mind” sense that we sometimes have that we are part of a smoothly functioning whole that is greater than the 16

Burke, Rhetoric of Motives, 21; emphasis Burke’s. Virginia Holland, Counterpoint: Kenneth Burke and Aristotle’s Theories of Rhetoric (New York: Philosophical Library, 1959), 27. 18 Burke, Rhetoric of Motives, 22. 19 Burke, Rhetoric of Motives, 22. 17

Douglas Robinson

167

sum of its parts—which is to say, more than just a collection of individual human beings. Another is war—“that most tragically ironic of all divisions, or conflicts, wherein millions of cooperative acts go into the preparation for one single destructive act,” which for Burke is thus a “disease of cooperation.”20 In some sense, in fact, war is ideally fought by one group mind against another—one group mind cooperating consubstantially to destroy another that is perceived as not only alien but inimical to it. Implicit in Burke’s notion of identification, then, is a distinction between the physical body and the affective self—or between what in Chinese might be called the shƝn t΃ 幓橼 (the organic body, made up of physical parts wrapped around bones) and the shƝn xƯn 幓 ⽫ (the psychosomatic body, made up of feeling-becoming-thinking, or heartbecoming-mind). In some cases the affective self may be coterminous with the physical body: my self ends at my skin. In others it may be smaller than the physical body, may withdraw into the mind (the res cogitans) and view the body (the res extensa) as its big dumb ride. In cases of Burkean identification, the affective self expands and extends and merges with others like it, forming a group mind, or a collective body-becomingmind—but only transiently and imperfectly, because, as I say, that construct is fragile and emotionally volatile. This group body-becomingmind or heart-becoming-mind (shƝn xƯn or, as I will argue below, rén ṩ) is the collective subject of pistis “persuading/believing.” It is a thoroughly ecological concept that is also thoroughly Aristotelian.

[III] The Circularity of zhì 㱣 in Mencius It is also, of course, thoroughly Mencian. This sort of term that serves as both the subject and object of an action, and indeed interchangeably as noun, verb, adjective, and adverb, is quite common in Chinese; and the Mencius has numerous passages exploring the resulting circulation of action through groups, for example 4A4: ⬇⫸㚘烉ˬッṢᶵ奒⍵℞ṩ炻㱣Ṣᶵ㱣⍵℞㘢炻䥖Ṣᶵ䫼⍵℞㔔ˤ埴 㚱ᶵ⼿侭炻䘮⍵㯪媠⶙烊℞幓㬋炻侴⣑ᶳ㬠ᷳˤ˭21

20

Burke, Rhetoric of Motives, 22. Mencius ⬇⫸, ⬇⫸ (Mencius) (http://www.with.org/classics_mencius_ch.html, accessed 26 August 2010), 4A4. 21

Problems in Translating “Circulatory” Terms

168

Mencius said: “[If you] love [a] person [and s/he does] not approach [you like a loving family member,] reverse [f΁n ⍵] [your attention back onto] your fellow-feeling [rén], [if you] govern [a] person [and s/he does] not [surrender to being] govern[ed,] reverse [f΁n] [your attention back at] your wisdom, [if you obey the rules of] ritual propriety [with] a person [and s/he does] not answer [in kind]/reciprocate [dƗ 䫼,] reverse [f΁n] [your attention back at] your respect. [If the proper] behaviour/conduct exists [and you do] not obtain [the desired result], in every case turn [f΁n] to look for/demand/beseech your many/various selves; [make] your body/person [shƝn] upright/just, and heaven down [the land under heaven=the Empire] [will] return [guƯ 㬠] [to you].” (my literal translation)

The organizing concept in this passage is f΁n, to reverse or invert; it is also to return from a place, to turn upside-down or inside-out, and to oppose or rebel against. Adjectivally it means “contrary” or “opposite,” adverbially “against”; it can also be translated “anti-.” It is also used for analogical expressions, since in Chinese these are thought to be inverted ways of saying a thing. Here it implies that the default directionality of the human gaze is outward, to other people, and indeed that gazes “circulate” through the bodies of those present; and that it is only when there is a break in that default circulation that one should “reverse” or “invert” one’s gaze at oneself. What is notable is that f΁n in this passage is itself the inverse of the default circulation: not a radically different action, but the same circulatory or reticulatory action turned inside-out, turned back on itself. Related circulatory concepts in the passage include: x

x

22

dƗ 䫼 (answer, agree): here meaning (not) to respond to ritual propriety with ritual propriety, and thus (not) to reciprocate. The social default for ritual propriety is reciprocity, and indeed somatic contagion, each ritual gesture not just requiring but invoking and conditioning its proper response; the failure to “answer” ritual propriety with ritual propriety signals a break in the circulatory flow that must be repaired. guƯ 㬠 (to go back, to return): here referring literally to the return of “heaven-down” or “the land under heaven” (tiƗn xià ⣑ᶳ), or, as Lau more idiomatically translates that, “the Empire will turn to you.”22 The implication is that the Empire turns away from the immoral emperor and turns back to the emperor who has become moral.

D. C. Lau, trans., Mencius (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2003), 153.

Douglas Robinson

169

In addition, of course, the whole passage deals with reciprocation, or more generally with reticulation, the contagious mirroring of emotion and behaviour from one body or person (shƝn, which means both body and person) to another, so that it is actually transferred from body to body. By implying that such reciprocation or circulation is the default state in human society—that human beings naturally mirror each other’s emotions and behaviour—Mencius anticipates the Rizzolatti group’s discovery of mirror neurons by two thousand years.23 But of course the “naturalness” of that mirroring has long been known; the Rizzolatti group merely identified the neural pathways through which it is channelled. What blocks that mirroring for Mencius is some sort of deficit in one (or more) of the participants in a social interaction; this passage identifies the specific kinds of deficits that can cause such blockages, and encourages readers to invert their gaze at their own lacks or failings, in an attempt to restore the natural flows of feelings and behaviour through groups. Four of the major forms reciprocity takes in the passage, then, are: 1. 2. 3.

4.

The inversion of the gaze: the default gaze is outward; the inversion is to pull it back from its outward movement to look back inward The answer in kind: the default response to ritual propriety is a mirroring with ritual propriety Intimacy: the default response to love is qƯn 奒, which can mean “to approach,” and even “to kiss,” but also parents and other close relations, intimates, and “dear.” The idea is that love breeds not just kisses, and not just love, but a whole complexly interconnected web of intimate relations The return: if the Empire has turned away from an immoral emperor, it will turn back if the emperor becomes moral

The fifth is more complicated: 5. “zhì rén bù zhì 㱣Ṣᶵ㱣,” literally “govern person not govern,” which Lau translates “if others do not respond to your attempts to govern them with order.”24 In Lau’s rendering, 23

See e.g. Giacomo Rizzolatti, Luciano Fadiga, Leonardo Fogassi, and Vittorio Gallese, “From Mirror Neurons to Imitation: Facts and Speculations,” in The Imitative Mind: Development, Evolution and Brain Bases, eds. Andrew N. Meltzoff and Wolfgang Prinz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 247–66; and Giacomo Rizzolatti and Corrado Sinigaglia, Mirrors in the Brain: How Our Minds Share Actions, Emotions, and Experience, trans. Frances Anderson (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). 24 Lau, Mencius, 153.

170

Problems in Translating “Circulatory” Terms

clearly, “order” is an attempt to separate the populace’s response to the emperor’s rule off semantically from that rule, so that it is not part of the same circulatory action. Zhì is, however, simultaneously both “to govern” and “to be governed.” Like pistis for Aristotle’s rhetor and audience, zhì is both the emperor’s action and the people’s response to that action. Governance, like persuasion, is a collective action, performed by the group (body-becoming-)mind. Indeed governance is not just like persuasion in being a collective action performed by the group body-becoming-mind; for Mencius the ideal kind of governance is persuasion-based, precisely because it works in and through the group heart-becoming-mind or collective feelingbecoming-thinking. “Heart-becoming-mind” and “feeling-becomingthinking” are my suggested translations of xƯn; when xƯn circulates productively and harmoniously through a group, the result is what Mencius calls rén.25

[IV] Western and Chinese Thought Now Chinese thought in general and Mencius in particular are known for what I am calling here “circular” or “circulatory” thinking—what in Western hermeneutical theory we might call the “virtuous cycle,” in which my inclination to do good arises out of your inclination to do good, and your inclination to do good arises out of mine, because in some sense we share the same affective body (shƝn xƯn). It is also well-known that this process is far too complexly interactive to be captured by the kind of 25

In modern Chinese, of course, zhì ⋫ is also phonetically cognate with zhì Ც (wisdom) and zhì ᘇ (will), so that, for example, in zhì rén bù zhì f΁n qí zhì ⋫Ӫн ⋫৽ަᲪ, Mencius can be read by modern readers as punning on “rule” and “wisdom”: if you zhì (govern) people and they refuse to zhì (be governed), look to your own zhì (wisdom). (zhì ⋫ also means to heal, to treat, or to cure, so that the punning line could also be read as referring to the work of a doctor (or a sage): if you zhì (heal) people and they do not zhì (heal), look to your own zhì (wisdom)— the English word “heal” there working in precisely the same circular way as Greek pistis and Chinese zhì ⋫.)ġ The semantic situation with zhì ᘇ (will) is more complicated. Since governing involves the exertion of will, there is a certain amount of default overlap between zhì ⋫ (govern) and zhì ᘇ (will). In 4B1, for example, Mencius says of two famous emperors, Shun and Wen, models of rén zhèng ӱ ᭯ (benevolent government), that they came from very different backgrounds and lived in very different times and places, and yet “when they had their way [zhì ᘇ] in the Central Kingdom, their actions matched like the two halves of a tally” (Lau, Mencius, 173).

Douglas Robinson

171

unilinear causal chains to which Western logic and science hegemonically attempt to reduce causation. I am currently working on a book studying this “circularity” in terms of ecology—specifically the ecology not of biological systems but of social ones, the ecology specifically of shared evaluative affect—in order in part to combat the typically negative understandings of Chinese philosophy engendered precisely by hegemonic Western unilinear thinking. In the sinological scholarly debates over these matters, and perhaps even more pertinently in the Sino-Hellenist debates, it is often mentioned that “Chinese philosophy” is very far from monolithic in this area: that Mencius developed what I call his “circular” or “ecological” approach to human development in order to combat the philosophy of Mòzӿ ⡐⫸, and that the thinking of the later Mohists and Legalists is very similar to Western thought in the same period; and that Zhnj XƯ (㛙䅡, 1130–1200), in canonizing the Mencius as one of the Four Books of Confucianism, also established the so-called Two Roots (èr bČn Ḵ㛔) reading of Mencius that divorced l΃ 䎮 (principle, reason) from qì 㯋 (energy) and thus in important ways dualized mind and matter, and it was not until Dài Zhèn’s (㇜暯, 1724–1777) correctives almost six centuries later that this well-entrenched misreading of Mencius was corrected: The sage is guided by his physical desires when he formulates the teaching of mutual production and nourishment. Thus, by regarding others as his own self, he achieves truthfulness (chung); by inferring the feelings of others from how he feels, he achieves reciprocity (she); by sharing the grief and joy of others, he achieves humanity [rén ṩ] …26

Dài Zhèn’s understanding of Mencius in terms of what I call the collective affective body (shƝn xƯn), in which others are my self and I feel others’ feelings in my own body, is the modern one that we now associate with “Chinese philosophy” in general; it is important to remember that this generalization is also an idealization, albeit a useful one. What is never mentioned in these debates, however, and perhaps has not yet been sufficiently noticed, is that Aristotle too—the Western philosopher most commonly associated with the dualistic and unilinear causal logic that leads to so many misunderstandings of “Chinese 26

Ann-ping Chin and Mansfield Freeman, trans., Tai Chen on Mencius: Explorations in Words and Meanings (New Haven: Yale University Press), 99– 100; quoted in Chun-chieh Huang, Mencian Hermeneutics: A History of Interpretations in China (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2001), 221.

172

Problems in Translating “Circulatory” Terms

philosophy”—has very powerful elements of the same circulatory or ecological thinking as well. Some of these he inherits from Plato, such as the concept of doxa, which means both “opinion” (as in my opinion of you, which “I” own) and “reputation” (the reputation you derive—and thus own—from my opinion). As Eric Havelock notes, this concept is highly problematic for what he calls “modern logic,” which is to say, for the modern Western unilinear logic that we typically associate with Plato and Aristotle: Both the noun [doxa], and the verb doko, are truly baffling to modern logic in their coverage of both the subjective and objective relationship. The verb denotes both the ‘seeming’ that goes on in myself, the ‘subject’, namely my ‘personal impressions’, and the ‘seeming’ that links me as an ‘object’ to other people looking at me—the ‘impression’ I make on them. The noun correspondingly is both the ‘impression’ that may be in my mind and the ‘impression’ held by others of me. It would appear therefore to be the ideal term to describe that fusion or confusion of the subject with the object that occurred in the poetized performance and in the state of mind created by this performance. It is the ‘seeming show of things’, whether this panorama is thought of as within me or outside of me.27

This association with “the poetized performance” is important for Havelock’s conception of Plato’s understanding of doxa because his brief is that in the Republic Plato is arguing not so much against poetry per se as against “the act of memorization through identification in the poetic performance which to him is inseparable from the poem itself, and which constitutes a total act and condition of mimesis”28—specifically, against the pedagogical culture that grounded education in having pupils memorize long passages from ancient poems and identify psychologically with the characters, which, he says, “constituted the content of the Greek mind before Plato.” 29 If then the doxa that Plato associates with this educational tradition, and thus with the philosophically untrained mind, is an irrational and vaguely poetic (indeed “dreamlike” [Republic 476cd]) frame of mind in which subject and object blur together, the binary for Plato is clear: clear rational scientific thinking (epistƝmƝ) bars the gates to this pre-scientific murk of opinion (doxa) by banishing the poetry it rode in on.

27

Eric A. Havelock, Preface to Plato (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1963), 250–51. 28 Havelock, Preface to Plato, 244. 29 Havelock, Preface to Plato, 251.

Douglas Robinson

173

What this analysis suggests in Hall’s terms, of course, is that the polarism of doxa is prescientific specifically in the sense of being predualistic; hence Havelock’s complaint that it “cover[s] both the subjective and objective relationship.” The dominant view of both Greek thinkers’ understanding of doxa follows roughly this line: that philosophy for both Plato and Aristotle entails the principled move from the prescientific disorganization of public opinion (doxa) to the scientific organization of epistƝmƝ. Polarism, in other words, is perceived by dualists as “disorganized.” My challenge to this prevailing teleological view is twofold: (1) that Aristotle is far more interested than Plato in doxa in its own right, as an empirical social phenomenon, and devotes significant energies especially in the Rhetoric to its investigation; and (2) that for Aristotle pistis and doxa as markers for social interaction are far more than polar: they are ecological, emerging out of the flows of persuasivity through a culture. Aristotle wants to know, specifically, how the social circulation of value that is implicit in doxa conditions the entelechial movement toward ta eikota, that which the community—oikos, which some ancient Greeks conceivably believed was related to eikos (at any rate, Plato, Aristotle and Xenophon seem to have played upon their similar sounds)—takes to be probable or likely or “truthy.” And he wants to know how rhetoric—the loose and constantly emerging collection of communal persuading/beingpersuaded speech acts that is implicit in pistis—participates in the social ecology by which certain things come to seem likely or probable enough to be as good as true. He does not always seem to be aware that he wants to know these things; his interest in them is often implicit in his argumentation. But they do not have to be read into his sentences. It requires no special interpretive cleverness or inventiveness to “find” them there. Indeed I submit that it requires extremely effective guidance from the neo-Aristotelian tradition for us not to find them there.

[V] Conclusion for Translators What this revised understanding of Aristotle (and to some extent Plato as well) might do for English translators’ options in rendering doxa and pistis, I am not sure; perhaps not much. Certainly three centuries of an accurate understanding of Mencius on rén (dating from Dài Zhèn’s eighteenth-century commentaries) have not made much of a dent in English translators’ inclination to render the word with the distinctly noncircular English equivalent “benevolence.” Even Chinese scholars

174

Problems in Translating “Circulatory” Terms

writing about rén in English, like Shun and Huang,30 tend to translate it as “benevolence,” though benevolence in English means a strictly individualistic inclination to be nice to other people—nothing like the ecological circulation of “niceness” or benevolence through a population that Mencius intended. But at least the recognition that the ecological circularity implied by these terms is of critical importance for both Aristotle and Mencius should make translators a little less willing to settle for the easiest and most obvious English equivalent, which in Havelock’s terms captures only the “subjective” or the “objective” aspect of the term: persuade or believe, govern or be governed, have an opinion or have a reputation. It should push translators to look a little harder for English verbs, say, that do work circularly in much the same way, like “heal,” and to develop workarounds that will indicate to readers that something of the same circularity is at work in concepts where no such equivalents exist in English.

30

Shun Kwong-loi, Mencius and Early Chinese Thought (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997)ļ Huang, Mencian Hermeneutics.

CONTRIBUTORS Chan Sin-wai, Professor in the Department of Translation at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, is Director of the Centre for Translation Technology, Director of the M.A. in Computer-Aided Translation Programme, and Editor of the Journal of Translation Technology. His research interests are translation studies, translation technology, and bilingual lexicography. His recent publications include the Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture (Bilingual Edition) (2003), A Dictionary of Translation Technology (2004), A Topical Bibliography of Computer(-Aided) Translation (2008), A Chronology of Translation in China and the West: From the Legendary Period to 2004 (2009), A Chinese-English Dictionary of the Human Body (2011), Style, Wit and Word-Play (co-edited with Tao Tao Liu and Laurence K. P. Wong, 2012), and The Dancer and the Dance (co-edited with Laurence K.P. Wong). His forthcoming publications include the Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Technology and the Routledge Encyclopedia of the Chinese Language. William H. Nienhauser, Jr. is Halls-Bascom Professor of Chinese Literature at the University of Wisconsin. His publications include the two-volume Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature and six volumes of translations from the Shiji (The Grand Scribe’s Records). He was founding editor of Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR), which he edited 1979–2009. Nienhauser has taught or researched at several universities in Germany, Academia Sinica, Kyoto University, National Taiwan University, and Peking University. Besides grants from ACLS, Fulbright-Hayes, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Japan Foundation, and NEH, he was awarded a Research Prize for lifetime achievement from the Humboldt Foundation (2003). Douglas Robinson is Chair Professor of English and Dean of the Arts Faculty at Hong Kong Baptist University, and author of numerous books on translation, including The Translator’s Turn (1991), Translation and Taboo (1996), Becoming a Translator (1997), Translation and Empire (1997), Western Translation Theory from Herodotus to Nietzsche (1997), Who Translates? (1999), Translation and the Problem of Sway (2011), and Schleiermacher’s Icoses: Social Ecologies of the Different Methods of

176

Contributors

Translating (2013). He has been a freelance translator from Finnish to English since 1975. Stuart H. Sargent received his Ph.D. in Chinese from Stanford University in 1977. He has taught at the University of Hawai’i, the University of Maryland, Colorado State University, and Stanford University; besides teaching language and literature, he has also offered courses on the theory and practice of translation. His 2007 book, The Poetry of He Zhu (1052– 1125), presents the poetry “through the lens of genre with accurate (and beautiful) translations, copious annotations, and discussions of the contexts of the poems informed by a deep knowledge of He Zhu’s contemporaries, especially Su Shi,” according to one reviewer. Richard E. Strassberg received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in East Asian Studies in 1975. Since 1978, he has been teaching at UCLA, where he is currently Professor of Chinese in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures specializing in pre-modern narrative and drama. Among his recent publications are: Inscribed Landscapes: Travel Writing from Imperial China (1994); A Chinese Bestiary: Strange Creatures from the Guideways Through Mountains and Seas (2002); and Wandering Spirits: Chen Shiyuan’s Encyclopedia of Dreams (2008), all published by the University of California Press. Among his recent interests is traditional Chinese garden culture. He is a contributor to the forthcoming Dumbarton Oaks Anthology of Chinese Garden Literature and is currently collaborating on a book of translations of the Kangxi emperor’s poems on the thirty-six views at Bishu shanzhuang. Professor Strassberg has been a Senior Fellow in the Landscape and Garden Program at Dumbarton Oaks, Wash. D.C. and also serves on the advisory committee for the Liu Fang Yuan Chinese garden at the Huntington Library and Gardens in San Marino, CA. Chaofen Sun received his Ph.D. in linguistics from Cornell University in 1988. He had taught at the City University of Hong Kong and the University of Wisconsin before joining the faculty of the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Stanford University in 1991. Since then, he has served as Department Chair (1999–2003, 2008–2011) and Director of the Center for East Asian Studies (2006–2009). In addition to a number of edited volumes and articles published in academic journals, his publications include two books, Chinese: A Linguistic Introduction (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2006) and Word Order Change and Grammaticalization in the History of Chinese (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996).

Two Voices in One: Essays in Asian and Translation Studies

177

John Wang is Emeritus Edward Clark Crossett Professor of Humanistic Studies in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Stanford University. He also at various times held a Distinguished Professorship at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy in Taipei, served as Head of the Division of Humanities at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and taught as Visiting Professor at The University of Hong Kong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and The National University of Singapore. His major publications cover fields ranging from early Chinese historical narratives to traditional Chinese fiction and drama, Chinese literary criticism, and Chinese language studies. Laurence K. P. Wong is Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of the Humanities and Affiliated Fellow of Lee Woo Sing College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. At The Chinese University of Hong Kong, he was also Research Professor in the Department of Translation from 2011 to 2013, Professor of Translation from 2006 to 2011, Associate Dean (Research) of the Faculty of Arts from 2007 to 2011, and Director of the Research Institute for the Humanities in 2011. He has published more than thirty books and numerous journal articles, covering such research areas as literary translation, translation studies, classical and modern Chinese literature, European literature, and comparative literature. His translations (between Chinese and European languages) include a 3-volume Chinese terza rima version of Dante’s La Divina Commedia (2003) and a Chinese version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (2013).