Encountering China’s Past: Translation and Dissemination of Classical Chinese Literature (New Frontiers in Translation Studies) 9811906475, 9789811906473

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New Frontiers in Translation Studies

Lintao Qi Shani Tobias   Editors

Encountering China’s Past Translation and Dissemination of Classical Chinese Literature

New Frontiers in Translation Studies Series Editor Defeng Li, Center for Studies of Translation, Interpreting and Cognition, University of Macau, Macao SAR, China

Translation Studies as a discipline has witnessed the fastest growth in the last 40 years. With translation becoming increasingly more important in today’s glocalized world, some have even observed a general translational turn in humanities in recent years. The New Frontiers in Translation Studies aims to capture the newest developments in translation studies, with a focus on: • Translation Studies research methodology, an area of growing interest amongst translation students and teachers; • Data-based empirical translation studies, a strong point of growth for the discipline because of the scientific nature of the quantitative and/or qualitative methods adopted in the investigations; and • Asian translation thoughts and theories, to complement the current Eurocentric translation studies. Submission and Peer Review: The editor welcomes book proposals from experienced scholars as well as young aspiring researchers. Please send a short description of 500 words to the editor Prof. Defeng Li at [email protected] and Springer Senior Publishing Editor Rebecca Zhu: [email protected]. All proposals will undergo peer review to permit an initial evaluation. If accepted, the final manuscript will be peer reviewed internally by the series editor as well as externally (single blind) by Springer ahead of acceptance and publication.

More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/11894

Lintao Qi · Shani Tobias Editors

Encountering China’s Past Translation and Dissemination of Classical Chinese Literature

Editors Lintao Qi Monash University Clayton, VIC, Australia

Shani Tobias Monash University Clayton, VIC, Australia

ISSN 2197-8689 ISSN 2197-8697 (electronic) New Frontiers in Translation Studies ISBN 978-981-19-0647-3 ISBN 978-981-19-0648-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0648-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Contents

Literary Translation as Cultural Encounter: Classical Chinese Literature in the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shani Tobias and Lintao Qi

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The Reading of Translations: Dissemination and Reception Studies How Purpose and Function Has Affected Translation and Subtitling of the Jingju Play Silang tanmu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . David L. Rolston A Translational History of The Dream of the Red Chamber in Japan . . . . Jindan Ni and Lintao Qi

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How and Why Does David Hawkes Use Rhymes in Translating Poems in Hong Lou Meng . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Quangong Feng

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The Motif of Cannibalism as Reconstructed in the English Translations of a Chinese Classical Novel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Yunhong Wang

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Monkey’s Journey to the West: How Manifold Versions of One Translation Helped to Disseminate a Classic Chinese Original . . . . . . . . . Wenyan Luo and Binghan Zheng

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French Translations of the Chinese Vernacular Erotic Novel of the Ming and Qing Dynasties: A Brief Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Pierre Kaser Japanese Translations of Jin Ping Mei: Chinese Sexuality in the Sociocultural Context of Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Lintao Qi and Shani Tobias

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Contents

Typological Figuration of Mystical Elements in Jesuit Figurists’ Re-interpretation of Chinese Classics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 Sophie Ling-chia Wei Striving for the “Original” Meaning: A Historical Survey of Yijing’s English Translations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Weirong Li The Making of Translations: Voice of Translators The Translation into Danish of Jin Ping Mei cihua—Jin Ping Mei i vers og prosa: personal recollections and reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Vibeke Børdahl On Translating Jin Ping Mei into Czech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Lucie Olivová and Ondˇrej Vicher Lessons from Compiling and Translating Homoeroticism in Imperial China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 Mark Stevenson Translating Song Yu’s Jiu Bian: Phases of Appreciative Perception . . . . . 249 Nicholas Morrow Williams Into the River of History: An Account of My Translation Work with the Grand Scribe’s Records (Shiji) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 William H. Nienhauser

Editors and Contributors

About the Editors Lintao Qi is Lecturer in the Masters of Interpreting and Translation Studies at Monash University, Australia. His research interests include literary translation theory and practice, translation and cultural diplomacy, and sexuality and censorship in translation. He is the author of Jin Ping Mei English Translations: Texts, Paratexts, and Contexts (Routledge, 2018) and co-editor (with Leah Gerber) of A Century of Chinese Literature in Translation: English Publication and Reception (Routledge, 2020). Lintao has published widely in internationally recognized journals such as Target, Translation and Interpreting Studies, and Perspectives. He is a NAATI-certified translator and Co-editor of New Voices in Translation Studies. Shani Tobias is a Lecturer in the Master of Interpreting and Translation Studies at Monash University, Australia. Her Ph.D. explored the translation of metaphor, and her recent publications and research interests encompass the cultural and stylistic aspects of literary translation, Japanese-English literary translation, and translator and interpreter pedagogy.

Contributors Vibeke Børdahl Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS), University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark Quangong Feng Zhejiang University, Zhejiang, China Pierre Kaser IrAsia Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, IrAsia, Marseille, France Weirong Li Yuelu Academy, Hunan University, Changsha, China Wenyan Luo The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong

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Jindan Ni RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia William H. Nienhauser University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA Lucie Olivová Department of Chinese Studies—Center of Asian Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic Lintao Qi Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia David L. Rolston University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA Mark Stevenson The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong Shani Tobias Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia Ondˇrej Vicher Department of Asian Studies, Palacký University, Olomouc, Czech Republic Yunhong Wang Jinan University, Guangzhou, China Sophie Ling-chia Wei The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong Nicholas Morrow Williams Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA Binghan Zheng Shanxi University, China & Durham University, Durham, UK

Literary Translation as Cultural Encounter: Classical Chinese Literature in the World Shani Tobias and Lintao Qi

Abstract Exploring classical Chinese literature and its translation through the centuries highlights the nature of translation as cultural encounter. The dissemination and reception of these cultural artefacts are affected by changing historical and sociocultural contexts and interactions between various agents of translation. In this introduction the editors provide an overview of all the chapters in the volume, which is divided into two parts. Part I comprises diverse scholarship on the translation of classical Chinese literature, incorporating a variety of disciplinary approaches and methodologies, by researchers in Asia, Australia, the US and Europe. Part II provides a unique platform for translators to reflect on their own experiences reading and translating classical Chinese literature. By forefronting the translators’ voices, we demonstrate the nature of translation as research, enabling the contributions to function as paratexts for readers and scholars of the translations. Keywords Classical Chinese literature · Translation · Dissemination · Sociocultural context · Interdisciplinarity · Translator reflections Exploring the historical landscape of the translation and dissemination of classical Chinese texts is illuminating on several accounts. It contributes to our understanding of global translation history more broadly, particularly with regard to the role of context (political, sociocultural, ideological), and the interactions between agents of translation (translators, publishers, governments) as well as the changing reception of translations through time. This volume combines such historical research with “history in the making”: translators’ own reflections on their recent projects translating classical Chinese literature. Although there is an expanding researcher base and significant body of scholarship on the translation and dissemination of classical Chinese literature, the majority of the work is done by researchers in China and published in Chinese, with only S. Tobias (B) · L. Qi Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected] L. Qi e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Qi and S. Tobias (eds.), Encountering China’s Past, New Frontiers in Translation Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0648-0_1

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sporadic publications in international journals (Qi and Roberts 2020, 2). Greater dialogue between scholars within and outside of China would enrich the field with insights stemming from different national contexts and academic traditions. The current volume aims to broaden the conversation in this way, breaking through geographical barriers and showcasing different disciplinary approaches of scholars based in China, Australia, the US, the UK, France, Denmark and the Czech Republic. Part I brings together this diversity of research under the umbrella themes of the translation, dissemination and reception of classical Chinese texts. The range of methodologies and approaches, from detailed archival studies to critical analyses of translation approaches and more theoretical discussions, complement each other and enable an interdisciplinary exchange of ideas. The case studies span millennia, from Peking opera to novels such as Hong Lou Meng (The Dream of the Red Chamber), Shui Hu Zhuan (Water Margin), Xi You Ji (Journey to the West), Jin Ping Mei (Plum in the Golden Vase), going back as far as early translations of Chinese mythology by the Jesuit Figurists and even translations of the Confucian classic, the Yijing (Book of Changes). Part II of this volume provides a platform for the reflections of translators themselves, comprising intimate first-hand accounts of several scholar-translators’ experiences encountering and translating classical Chinese texts (the genres span novels, poetry, homoerotic writings and historical texts) into Danish, Czech and English. These personal insights elucidate the motivations, aims, research processes, challenges and approaches involved in this endeavour. Translator reflections have been published elsewhere (e.g. Wilson and Gerber 2012; Gerber and Qi 2020), but not as comprehensively as in this collection. By providing a dedicated forum for translators’ voices to be heard, we are putting them on a par with traditional academic research, acknowledging that translation practice by scholar-translators is at the same time a product of their previous research, and in itself a process of ongoing research. The contributions also function as important paratexts for readers of their translations, informing their interpretation of the work and understanding of the translator’s role, enhancing the status and visibility of translators. Simultaneously, these introspective and retrospective reflections by translators provide well-organised raw data for historical study of translators and translations by future generations of scholars, since it can otherwise be a painstaking process to search through multiple archival sources to reconstruct the lives, activities and motivations of translators (e.g. Munday 2013, 2014; Paloposki 2017; So 2010). A summary of each chapter is presented below. Within each part, chapters are arranged in reverse chronological order according to the source text being discussed, as we delve deeper into Chinese literary history. Our encounter with classical Chinese texts begins with David L. Rolston’s exploration of Jingju (Peking opera) in English translation. The author examines three translations and one set of subtitles of the famous play Silang tanmu (Fourth Son Visits His Mother) produced between 1967 and 2014. He utilises paratextual material and contextual research to demonstrate four very different approaches to translation, based on the purpose and function of the target texts. The first translation contains detailed stage directions and was designed to help foreigners understand how the

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original play was performed; the second, in contrast, was produced to be performed itself; and the third was part of a government-led project to present Jingju as works of literature. Finally, Rolston comments on amateur subtitles of a video of the play, which allow the original performance to coexist with the translation in a multimodal format. We continue our journey back in time to arrive at one of the canons of classical Chinese literature, Hong Lou Meng (The Dream of the Red Chamber). While English translations of this text have been studied extensively, in this chapter, Jindan Ni and Lintao Qi chart its translational history in Japan. The authors emphasise the vibrant literary connections between China and Japan since ancient times, and the influences of Chinese classics on Japan’s literary development. Within this context and drawing upon Pierre Bourdieu’s notions of habitus and capital, they shed light on the role played by the translators’ educational and social background, as well as the symbolic and financial capital provided by prominent publishers in influencing the distinct features of each translation. The authors also contend that the multiple re-translations (including re-translations by the same translator) as well as abridged versions were motivated by various factors such as the advancement of scholarship on the source text (Redology) as well as a desire to appeal to a wider, more contemporary audience, and distinguish the translation from previous approaches. The approach to translating poetry in Hong Lou Meng is an interesting case study explored by Quangong Feng, focusing on David Hawkes’ English translation and his techniques of using rhyme to translate both rhymed and unrhymed verses in the source text. While the use of rhyme when translating classical Chinese verse is often criticised or discounted, Feng argues that Hawkes’ ability to translate in rhyme while still retaining the overall meaning of the poems enhances their artistic appeal by conveying the aesthetic effects produced by form as well as content. Feng identifies three methods adopted by Hawkes: seeking rhymes according to the original meaning; changing the meaning for the sake of rhyme; and adjusting plot elements in order to create new rhymes. Since the poems are often connected to the plot, themes and characterisation in HLM, Hawkes pays close attention to the function of the poem when deciding on the appropriate translation method. Yunhong Wang’s contribution is another discussion of translation strategy, providing a close analysis of how the motif of cannibalism is reconstructed in three English translations of the classical Chinese novel Shui Hu Zhuan (Water Margin). From a narratological perspective, Wang argues that while motif is often seen as more translatable than discourse features such as voice, an examination of these three translations shows that certain motifs may be changed, or even lost due to the mediation of translators. Wang conducts a survey of 189 clauses to identify where shifts have occurred in the translations and finds that overall, Pearl S. Buck’s 1933 translation tends to retain the cannibalism motif while Sidney Shapiro’s 1980 translation quite comprehensively deletes it, and John and Alex Dent-Young’s 1994–2002 translation retains the motif in some instances but also performs stylistic modulation to attenuate its effect. The author describes how these translation strategies affect the characterisation, thematic links and plot development and also have intertextual repercussions for the use of the motif in the target culture and literature. The

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final section of the chapter seeks to account for the varying translation approaches by situating each within its socio-historical context and considering factors such as ideology, patronage and readership. From this, we turn to the sixteenth century classic Xi You Ji (Journey to the West) and its 1942 English translation by Arthur Waley (Monkey: A Folk-tale of China). Wenyan Luo and Binghan Zheng examine the role of this popular and influential translation in spawning multiple re-translations and versions in several languages, leading to the large-scale global dissemination of the work. Through a close analysis of primary sources such as correspondence between publishers and other agents in the translation process, the authors explore the dynamics involved in the networks of translations, emphasising the crucial role of publishers in the production and promotion of translations. While Waley was a renowned translator and Monkey was critically acclaimed, these factors combined with a highly proactive publisher who paid much attention to cover design, typesetting and publicity campaigns to make the work successful in the UK and abroad. With regard to the dissemination of Chinese classical literature beyond Anglophone spheres, Pierre Kaser takes us on a tour of the French translations of erotic novels of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Despite being targeted by censors from early on and mostly still banned in China, these texts have survived and been translated quite broadly, such that in the half-century from the 1960s, at least twenty works have been made available in French, responding to a growing curiosity among the Francophone audience about ancient Chinese eroticism. The author provides an historical overview of the translation, dissemination and reception of erotic texts from Jin Ping Mei (Plum in the Golden Vase) and Rou Putuan (The Carnal Prayer Mat), to the more recent translations of a corpus of classical Chinese works (the “Siwuxie huibao” series). Kaser illuminates and critically analyses the various translation methods such as relay translations from German versions compared to more complete translations from the Chinese originals, and the creative collaborations between sinologists and translators. He draws closely from paratexts and critical commentary, examining how translators, editors and sinologists have conceived of their work. Lintao Qi and Shani Tobias focus specifically on Jin Ping Mei in their chapter, investigating how the sexual component of the novel was dealt with by translators in the Japanese context. The authors provide a comprehensive diachronic study of representative Japanese translations situated in their sociocultural contexts, from the Edo period to the present day. These contexts gave rise to varying forms of censorship based on religious norms and political circumstances, and further led to self-censorship by early translators who would bowdlerise or delete the erotic content to avoid prosecution. The authors utilise the translators’ paratexts to analyse the varying motivations and aims of the translations. They show that while prewar Japanese translators were strongly influenced by the likelihood of censorship and therefore approached their work from an ideological (moralising) standpoint or didactic purpose (improving understanding of Chinese culture and society), the post-war environment became gradually more tolerant of sexual material, giving rise to more complete translations. At the other extreme, the growth of erotic genres in Japanese popular culture since the 1970s has led to multimodal film and manga

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adaptations as well as rewritings of Jin Ping Mei which deliberately amplify the erotic content. Keeping with the theme of how context and ideology contribute to varying translation purposes and approaches, Sophie Ling-chia Wei presents a fascinating case study of the Jesuit Figurists, one of the earliest groups of sinologists and translators. She examines how they translated the mystical creatures and elements in Chinese classics into Latin, depicting Chinese mythological figures as figures from GrecoRoman, biblical and Egyptian mythologies, to support their case that all pagan religions have the same origin. Wei compares this with the Figurists’ translations into Chinese, demonstrating how the stories were similarly adapted to cater to the needs of their target audience, this time rendering the betrayal of Satan, the fall of Adam and Eve, and the emergence of Jesus through mystical creatures in Chinese classics, to lessen their foreignness. They could thus build parallels between ancient Chinese legends and the chronicles in the Bible for the purpose of proselytisation. The last contribution in Part I by Weirong Li traces the translation history into English of one of the most ancient Chinese texts of divination and philosophy, the Yijing (Book of Changes) from 1854 to 2020. These translations have been influential in the understanding of Chinese Confucian thought in the West. As such, Li contends that the “ultimate goal” of translators has been to provide Anglophone audiences with translations that are as close as possible to the original meaning. Using translator paratexts, he identifies several interesting trends in this translation history, particularly regarding the process of translation. Early translators made extensive use of traditional authoritative commentaries on the Yijing and in some cases, benefitted from close collaboration with Chinese Yijing scholars when interpreting the source text. More recent translators have been able to take advantage of both previous translations and new scholarship, as well as important archaeological discoveries since the 1970s, such as the Mawangdui Silk Manuscript. In Part II, we hear directly from contemporary researcher-translators who have recently completed, or are nearing completion of significant (re)translations of classical Chinese texts. Over the past decade (2011–2021), sinologist and translator Vibeke Børdahl has completed a full translation of Jin Ping Mei into Danish. With captivating enthusiasm, she writes about her research into the oral tradition of Yangzhou storytelling, its relationship to the Ming novels, and how she was eventually overcome by a “deep-seated urge” to translate Jin Ping Mei for Scandinavian readers. She describes how she drew inspiration and knowledge from the wealth of Jin Ping Mei scholarship available at the time, as well as prominent translations into French (Lévy’s was her ideal model), German and English. For Børdahl, the most challenging, but also most enjoyable aspect of translating this novel was the linguistic polyphony of the source text, which needed to be recreated to convey the stylistic nuances and individual voices. She aimed for a translation approach that was close to the ST but not alienating for her readers, choosing not to include extensive paratextual material in the style of David T. Roy’s English translation. Børdahl explains her approach to various translation issues such as proper nouns, set phrases, verse and erotic passages, making it clear that her priority was to recreate the tone, effect and atmosphere of these in the target language.

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Børdahl’s reflections can be read in tandem with the contribution by Lucie Olivová and Ondˇrej Vicher who in 2021 are currently translating the final volumes of Jin Ping Mei into Czech. Their translation journey is an interesting one, because they have taken over the project from the late professor Oldˇrich Král who translated the first seven volumes before his death. Their translation is thus necessarily constrained to a certain extent by the choices of their predecessor. Olivová and Vicher describe their unique approach to collaborative translation (whereby they each translate alternate chapters and proofread each other’s translations in a sequential flow). The authors comment in detail on the various linguistic and cultural challenges of translating JPM, providing many examples of how they have dealt with such issues as register, proper nouns, units of measurement and poetry. Their solutions are varied and in their words, “attempt to find a compromise between the exotic and the domestic, a balance between the scientific and the aesthetic, between the accurate and the beautiful.” The contribution by anthropologist Mark Stevenson reflects on his experiences selecting, compiling and translating Homoeroticism in Imperial China: A Sourcebook in 2013, which comprises English translations of over sixty pre-modern Chinese literary works (including content selected from histories, poetry, drama, fiction, etc.) on the theme of same-sex desire. Like Olivová and Vicher, Stevenson collaborated with a co-translator, Cuncun Wu, a discipline expert, in a somewhat different process of “side-by-side collaboration,” which provided a “sense of immediacy, colour, space and tone created in an act of communication that was voiced and heard” as Wu read or paraphrased the source text aloud and Stevenson drafted the translation in discussion with her. Their aim for the Sourcebook was to address misconceptions about the topic of same-sex desire in discourse and paratexts surrounding previous translations of Chinese materials, not through a philological translation approach, but rather one in which the aesthetics of the STs were preserved, and the sophisticated and complex nature of this literary tradition could emerge. Stevenson provides a metacommentary about the role and ethics of the translator in this regard. Nicholas Morrow also prompts us to think about the role of translation beyond the linguistic challenges. For him, the translator’s role is “not so much to balance competing values as to elucidate which values actually are at stake in interpreting the text, both today and in the past.” His chapter comprises a full English translation + commentary of an ancient Chinese poem: Song Yu’s “Jiu bian” (Nine phases), part of the anthology Chuci (Elegies of Chu). Morrow contends that translating such a poem requires the translator to embark on a process of discovery to interpret subjects and contexts which frequently are not identified within the poem itself. By presenting each of the nine phases in bilingual format with detailed discussion of the ST and his translation choices, he takes us with him on this inspiring journey. In addition to the interpretive challenges, he explores techniques for translating metre and rhythm, as well as poetic imagery and allusions from traditional Chinese culture and literature. When dealing with many of these issues, Morrow demonstrates the importance of reflecting on the poem as a whole, considering both the intertextual and intratextual contexts when formulating an interpretation.

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Developing an interpretation based on meticulous research is also central to William Nienhauser’s approach to translating the Shiji (Grand Scribe’s Records) into English. Nienhauser has devoted himself to this mammoth task of translation and retranslation for over thirty years, and his reflections in this chapter, as he nears the end of the project, provide readers and scholars with a behind-the-scenes appreciation of just what it takes to engage seriously in such an endeavour. Nienhauser first explains his background and motivation, and his decision to strive for a fully annotated scholarly translation to counterbalance existing translations. He adopts a “workshopping” approach to the translation process, whereby drafts are read aloud and discussed in small groups before being finalised. Indeed, he takes the notion of collaborative translation to a new level due to the sheer number of collaborators involved, including researchers and graduate students in multiple countries and regions. Drawing upon such a diversity of knowledge and perspectives when translating would take time, for sure, but would undoubtedly enrich the interpretive process. With its merging of research and translator perspectives, this volume is likely to have broad appeal to scholars in Chinese Studies, Translation Studies, Literary Studies, and related disciplines. It may also interest other literary translators, as well as anyone who enjoys reading literature in translation.

References Gerber, Leah, and Lintao Qi. 2020. A Century of Chinese Literature in Translation (1919–2019): English Publication and Reception. London and New York: Routledge. Munday, Jeremy. 2013. The Role of Archival and Manuscript Research in the Investigation of Translator Decision-making. Target 25 (1): 125–139. Munday, Jeremy. 2014. Using Primary Sources to Produce a Microhistory of Translation and Translators: Theoretical and Methodological Concerns. The Translator 20 (1): 64–80. Paloposki, Outi. 2017. In Search of an Ordinary Translator: Translator Histories, Working Practices and Translator–Publisher Relations in the Light of Archival Documents. The Translator 23 (1): 31–48. Qi, Lintao, and Moss Roberts. 2020. Classical Chinese Literature in Translation: Texts, Paratexts and Contexts. Translation Horizons 10: 1–6. So, Richard Jean. 2010. Collaboration and Translation: Lin Yutang and the Archive of Asian American Literature. Modern Fiction Studies 56 (1): 40–62. Wilson, Rita, and Leah Gerber. 2012. Creative Constraints: Translation and Authorship. Monash University Publishing.

Shani Tobias is a Lecturer in the Master of Interpreting and Translation Studies at Monash University, Australia. Her PhD explored the translation of metaphor, and her recent publications and research interests encompass the cultural and stylistic aspects of literary translation, Japanese-English literary translation, and translator and interpreter pedagogy. Lintao Qi is Lecturer in the Masters of Interpreting and Translation Studies at Monash University, Australia. His research interests include literary translation theory and practice, translation and cultural diplomacy, and sexuality and censorship in translation. He is the author of Jin Ping

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Mei English Translations: Texts, Paratexts, and Contexts (Routledge, 2018) and co-editor (with Leah Gerber) of A Century of Chinese Literature in Translation: English Publication and Reception (Routledge, 2020). Lintao has published widely in internationally recognized journals such as Target, Translation and Interpreting Studies, and Perspectives. He is a NAATI-certified translator and Co-Editor of New Voices in Translation Studies.

The Reading of Translations: Dissemination and Reception Studies

How Purpose and Function Has Affected Translation and Subtitling of the Jingju Play Silang tanmu David L. Rolston

Abstract Silang tanmu 四郎探母 (Fourth Son Visits His Mother) is a famous traditional play at the very heart of the Jingju 京劇 (a.k.a., Peking opera) repertoire that has been banned from performance in both the PRC and the ROC but that has nevertheless remained a perennial favorite impossible to keep off the stage. This paper examines three translations and one set of subtitles for the play and discusses their differences with particular regard to their intended purposes and audiences: two were prepared to help non-Chinese students learn to perform the play or elements of Chinese indigenous theater, one was prepared to help Jingju and its classic repertoire become better known outside China, and the last is a set of subtitles added to a video of a TV broadcast of a performance of the play that was posted online. Keywords Chinese plays in translation · Bilingual translation · Performance surtitles · Translation for performance · Jingju (Peking opera) · Translation for different audiences and purposes Jingju 京劇 (a.k.a., Peking opera), like Western opera, is primarily a performance genre. It grew by borrowing from other Chinese indigenous theater genres, matured into something that was different from them and with an identity of its own in the nineteenth century, then went on to become the theatrical genre with the widest reach in China and the most influential mass media of its day in the twentieth century. It was at one time so influential that Jiang Qing 江青 (1914–1991) and others picked it to be the vehicle for transforming China during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). As entertainment options have proliferated since the Reform Era (1978–) began, Jingju has lost its predominance but still retains a lot of cultural capital. There has been some debate as to from which local theater tradition Jingju adapted its version of Silang tanmu 四郎探母 (Fourth Son Visits His Mother), but that need not concern us. Of more importance is how prominent this play has been in the Jingju repertoire since our earliest records to the present. The first guide to Beijing that included a separate section on theater appeared in 1845. It includes a list of D. L. Rolston (B) University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Qi and S. Tobias (eds.), Encountering China’s Past, New Frontiers in Translation Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0648-0_2

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thirty-seven currently performing actors of the “Four Great Anhui Troupes” (sida Huiban 四大徽班), the four troupes perhaps most fundamental in the development of Jingju. For each actor is listed the roles in which plays the actor is famous for. Silang tanmu 四郎探母 (Fourth Son Visits His Mother) is the play that appears most often (seven times); and five characters from the play are listed (the male and female leads twice).1 The earliest extant datable playscript for the play dates from 1880, when it is included in a woodblock-printed anthology of primarily Jingju plays, Li Shizhong’s 李世忠 (d. 1881) Liyuan jicheng 梨園集成 (Compendium of plays).2 It was not remarkable for a popular Jingju play of the nineteenth century to have been transmitted only in manuscript for so long; the troupes, afraid of competition, did not allow the widespread transmission of the plays they developed and performed. When Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908) brought in famous Jingju actors and troupes into the palace after the death of Empress Dowager Ci’an (1837–1881), although the actors and troupes were made to produce written playtexts for every play they performed, and Cixi was famous for watching performances with fair copies of the playtexts in front of her (actors could get into big trouble for departing from the written version), this did not immediately lead to the widespread printing of Jingju playscripts. That happened for the first time in the twenty years centered on 1900, when predominantly undated lithographic editions of plays were published in Shanghai in numerous editions that plagiarized each other.3 The play was longer than most in these collections, and typically split up into three fascicles, each with an illustration of characters from the play on stage. Typeset editions of the play began to appear in the early years of the Republic of China (1912–1949). There were a number of factors that spurred the increased publication of Silang tanmu and other Jingju plays. One was the spread of the genre into South China, especially Shanghai. People there were less familiar with Mandarin and needed written material to help them understand what was going on onstage (displaying subtitles on either side of the stage would not become common until after 1949). Demand for printed versions of plays was also driven by the growing number of amateur performers (piaoyou 票 友; some editions promised that relying on them, amateurs would be able to avoid having to depend on actors, a class of people whose social status was still very low) and fans who listened to phonograph recordings and radio broadcasts of Jingju. Oddly enough, Silang tanmu was both one of the most popular and most controversial of Jingju plays. To help understand why especially the latter was true, we The name of the guide is Dumen jilüe 都門紀略 (Concise record of the capital) and that of the theater section is “Cichang 詞場.” For a typeset version of the section, see Fu (2010, 2: 907–914). 2 On Li Shizhong, who had his own theater troupes, and the collection, see Huang (1989). A scan of the copy of Liyuan jicheng originally collected by Nakasawa Kikuya 長澤規矩也 (1902–1980), and now held by the University of Tokyo, is available at http://shanben.ioc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/. 3 Basically all of these sets included Silang tanmu. An example would be a late Qing set titled Huitu Jingdu Sanqing ban Jingdiao 繪圖京都三慶班京調 (Illustrated Capital Sanqing Troupe capital tunes). The Sanqing Troupe was one of the four Anhui troupes and did not disband until 1898. A scan of the copy originally collected by Nakasawa Kikuya and now held by the University of Tokyo is available at http://shanben.ioc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ (search under the title given to the entire set). 1

Translation of the Jingju Play Silang tanmu

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need to look at the plot of the play. It tells the story of Yang Yanhui 楊延輝, fourth son of the patriarch and matriarch of the famous Yang Family of Generals of the Song dynasty. In a battle against the northern Liao dynasty, he is captured, changes his name and identity, and is married to the daughter of Empress Xiao of the Liao dynasty, Princess Iron Mirror (Tiejing gongzhu 鐵鏡公主). After living in the Liao palace as imperial son-in-law for over a decade and fathering a young son, Yanhui hears that his mother has come north with the Song army. He gets the princess to help him sneak out of the palace to go see his mother, promising to return that very night. She tricks Empress Xiao into lending her an arrow of command that allows Yanhui to cross the border. When he does come back, Empress Xiao, now aware of his real identity, condemns him to death, but the princess saves his life by playing on her mother’s affections for her grandson and herself. Yanhui is warned by Empress Xiao to not try and do anything of the sort again. Part of the original appeal of Silang tanmu was the idea that seemingly unbridgeable barriers between ethnicities could be (at least temporarily) breached. The Qing dynasty was founded and run by the Manchus, with the help of Central Asians such as the Mongols, but also by Han Chinese who surrendered to them or decided to, eventually, accept the legitimacy of the dynasty. Relations between Manchu and Han were exacerbated by such things as the Manchu demand that Han Chinese men shave their foreheads and plait the rest of the hair on their heads in queues. For the first part of the dynasty, in order to avoid playing up ethnic tensions, actors were not allowed to wear Manchu dress (qizhuang 旗裝) and hair-styles onstage (Wang 2020). It was not until the end of the eighteenth century that this policy began to change, and in the nineteenth century, in plays such as Silang tanmu, not only did Manchu characters begin to appear on stage and wear Manchu dress, but all non-Chinese northerners, including the Khitan of the Liao dynasty, did so as well. However, for those Chinese who might have been willing to praise Yang Yanhui for his filiality, the fact that he surrendered to the enemy of the Chinese state could not be forgiven. It was for this reason that the play was banned for long periods of time by both the Guomindang (Nationalist Party) in Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China (PRC).4 It is only in recent decades that Chinese scholars have started to talk about Jingju librettos as dramatic literature.5 This has yet to become common among the rather limited number of Western scholars who work on Jingju, despite the fact that the open participation of literati in the writing of Jingju playscripts began in earnest in the Republican period, and that younger playwrights attached to Jingju troupes now tend to have college degrees. Western scholars of China have, for a long time, been interested in popular literature as a way to understand Chinese culture. This led to the inclusion of translations from older and more esteemed genres of Chinese theater in

4

While the play was not among the twenty-six plays banned by name in the early years of the PRC, constant criticism of the play kept it off the stage until the Reform Period, with the short exception of the Hundred Flowers Period (1956–1957). 5 The first book to discuss Jingju playscripts as literature, Yan (2005), is less than twenty years old.

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books about China by the Jesuits6 and the translations of novels by missionaries (both as ways to understand China and to learn Chinese).7 Although what seems to be the first translation of a Jingju play into English was done by an Englishman who worked both in the British and Chinese civil services, he was most interested in folklore.8 The first book of translations of Jingju plays into English9 seems to have been done for the benefit of Westerners who might live in or visit China and want to see these plays. Entitled, Famous Chinese Plays, it was co-written by L. C. Arlington (1859– 1942)10 and Harold Acton (1904–1994).11 It was written and published in China (by Henri Veich in 1937 in Beijing [known at the time as Peiping]). The book includes the “translations” of over thirty plays but many of the scenes in them are summarized rather than translated. They are, in a sense, primarily extended synopses or guides to the plays (they often have appended remarks on how the plays are performed by famous actors seen by the pair; the book also has photographs of actors in costume and aria snatches with Western musical notation). The next big project to translate Jingju plays into English did not begin to be published until 1967, when the first of the three volumes of A. C. Scott’s Traditional Chinese Plays appeared. That volume consisted of an introduction to “The Peking Theater” (which turns out to include both Jingju and Kunqu), and full translations of two Jingju plays, one of which is Silang tanmu and the other Hudie meng 蝴蝶 夢 (The butterfly dream; a.k.a., Da piguan 大劈棺 [The great cleaving open of the coffin]). If Famous Chinese Plays was oriented toward Westerners who might want to attend Chinese performances of Jingju, Traditional Chinese Plays was prepared for Westerners who might want to perform (or understand how to perform) Jingju or make use of elements from the tradition in Western theater. Of the six translations of plays in the three volumes (the last volume appeared in 1975; all three appeared during the time Scott was running a new Asian theater program at University of Wisconsin, Madison, whose press published the volumes), Scott only directed performances of the translated version of Hudie meng (once in 1961 and once in 1969), with the arias spoken rather than sung. He made a half-hour TV program about this play in 1961 and in a guest lecture video-recorded in 1980 he talked about using Asian theater concepts to perform Western theater.12 Scott was very clear that none of Du Halde (1739–1741), included an (incomplete) translation of Zhao-shi gu’er 趙氏孤兒 (The orphan of Zhao). 7 For example, see Baller (1911). 8 See Stent (1876). On Stent’s interest in folklore, see Idema (2017). 9 A couple of Kunqu 崑曲 (Kun opera) plays are included. At the time in China, it was common for Jingju actors to perform a number of Kunqu plays. 10 Arlington also wrote The Chinese Drama from the Earliest Times until Today (New York: B. Blom, 1930). 11 Acton can be taken as a representative of another segment of Westerners in China at that time. He figures in Mungello (2012). 12 The title of the first one is The Butterfly Dream: Chinese Classical Theater, and was produced at Creative Arts Television in Kent, Connecticut; the second is titled Asian Concepts of Stage Discipline and Western Actor Training, and was produced by Michigan State University in 1980 (it is also about half an hour). Both are available in the Alexander Street Press database. 6

Translation of the Jingju Play Silang tanmu

15

the translations, despite all the stage directions they include, are adequate to teach someone to perform the roles in them; he believed that staging the translations and training Western actors to perform the parts required intense training sessions with professional Jingju artists.13 Scott first saw Chinese theater in China shortly after World War II, when he was sent there by the British Council for Cultural Relations to China. After 1949 he lived in Hong Kong for two years, during which time he got to know Zhang Junqiu 張君秋 (1920–1997),14 the most famous male performer of female roles after Mei Lanfang 梅蘭芳 (1894–1961), and other famous Jingju and Kunqu performers who were waiting in Hong Kong to see whether they wanted to return to China proper under the Communist Party. Shortly after that, Scott spent two years studying kabuki in Japan and published two book-length English translations of kabuki plays. He returned briefly to China in 1956 to see plays and former acquaintances. The grant for the new Asian theater program lasted from 1963 to 1972, after which Scott did not have the budget to bring in as many Asian theater specialists and concentrated more on teaching theater students to make use of Asian theater concepts and practices to inform their performance of Western plays.15 On the covers and title pages of the second and third volumes of Traditional Chinese Plays, the following text appears prominently: “Translated, described, annotated, and illustrated by A. C. Scott.” In the case of volume one, the word “illustrated” does not appear.16 As for the annotation, the translation of Silang tanmu has 19 footnotes and the volume in which it appears has a glossary and an index (the other two volumes do not have a glossary), but it is the appearance of the word “description” that is most of interest. As the prefaces to the three volumes make clear, Scott’s main audience for them was theater students.17 In both his kabuki and Jingju translations, he felt that just translating what the actors said or sung on stage and the very laconic stage directions of the original playscripts would not be able to give theater students, unfamiliar with the plays or the traditions they came from, a good idea of how the plays work on stage. When he was doing the work on his translations and for some 13

Scott (1962) described how he enlisted the aid of two Hong Kong Jingju professionals he knew to help train young actors to perform The Butterfly Dream in 1961 under the sponsorship of the Institute of Advanced Studies, but is pretty critical of how the two professionals actually performed the duties requested of them during the workshop. 14 Scott’s translation of Silang tanmu includes three photos of an actor dressed as Princess Iron Fan, one of which is identified as Zhang Junqiu (here and elsewhere Scott’s use of the older Wade-Giles romanization system has been converted to pinyin); the other two are also almost certainly of him too. 15 For an overview of Scott’s career, on which I have relied pretty heavily for detail, especially in this paragraph, see Liu (2011). Besides the three volumes of translations, Scott also published The Classical Theatre of China (first published in 1957), Mei Lan-fang, Leader of the Pear Garden (first published in 1959), and Actors Are Madmen: Notebook of a Theatregoer in China (1982). 16 The illustrations in the other two volumes of Traditional Chinese Plays take the form of line drawings. All three included posed and stage photos of actors in costume. 17 On the copyright page for each of the three volumes, there is a statement that inquiries about “performing rights” should be sent to Scott himself. The one for the first volume claims that the two plays in it are “fully protected as drama.”

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time after that, access to video or film recordings of performances of the plays he translated was difficult or even impossible. He was also very clear that because of the changes going on in the PRC, traditional Chinese theater was going through irrevocable changes. Only one of the original editions of the plays translated in Traditional Chinese Plays represents a version revised or newly compiled after 1949.18 Alone among the six plays, Scott included an appendix for Silang tanmu containing “excerpts” from the play designed to “provide the reader with aural illustration of some forms discussed earlier in the description of theater music (see pp. 6–9) [of the ‘Introduction’ to the volume].”19 A note at the end of the preface to the volume says, “A tape has been made of the illustrative excerpts... printed in the appendix of this book” and provides details on how to get a copy. I have not been able to find a more detailed description of this audiotape nor to locate a copy of it. The appendix covers five excerpts: (1) Yanhui’s “opener” (yinzi 引子), whose first half is recited and second half sung, followed by his “stage settling poem” (dingchang shi 定場詩) and spoken self-introduction (tongming 通明); (2) Yanhui’s first aria; (3) a largely spoken exchange between Yanhui, Iron Mirror, and her maid to illustrate how these three characters speak differently, due to their differing sexes, status, and role-types; (4) a “duet” between Yanhui and Iron Mirror over her getting the arrow of command for him so he can visit his mother; and (5) a comic piece from the end of the play, all in dialogue, in which the two imperial uncles (guojiu 國舅) get Iron Fan to pretend to kill her son in order to get Empress Xiao to pardon Yanhui. The excerpts include short introductions (the longest, to excerpt two, is one page long) as to what is special and to be paid attention to in each excerpt. All of the excerpts provide romanization of the stage dialogue, poems, and arias in Standard Chinese (no attempt is made to show how individual words are pronounced differently from Standard Chinese in Jingju, which would require both some modification of the romanization system used and diacriticals or numbers to show the tone contours of individual characters [except for certain role-types that speak something close to Pekinese, the other role-types speak a stage dialect peculiar to Jingju]). In the romanization for Yanhui’s aria, which is sung to a slow meter and with a lot of melisma, an attempt was made to show which words extend over how many multiple beats by following those words with a line of spaced-out periods with approximately one period per extra beat. But if we return to the language about what Scott added to his Jingju translations, the word “described” is most important. Playscripts, outside of any paratextual material that might appear before or after the play itself, are composed of two types of language: that which the actors vocalize, and information about how the play should be performed (stage directions). While the former should be relatively fixed across editions of the same play, the amount of stage directions provided can vary widely for theatrical genres (for instance, ancient Greek playscripts as they have been passed The exception is Shiwu guan 十五貫 (Fifteen strings of cash), in volume two, whose newly revised version Scott got to see performed in 1956. 19 See Scott (1967, 149). The appendix appears on pages 149–159. 18

Translation of the Jingju Play Silang tanmu

17

down to us often have no stage directions at all, while modern plays by playwrights such as Ibsen and Strindberg can include paragraph upon paragraph of character analysis and in some respects resemble a novel). The amount and types of stage directions in editions of playscripts for “traditional” plays (plays for which the playwright’s copyright is not strictly enforced, which would apply to all of the playscripts translated in Traditional Chinese Plays) can also vary tremendously, depending on their intended audience and use. Traditional Jingju plays are famously constructed by the use of “conventions” (chengshi 程式) that allow actors to develop the details of their characters and to efficiently construct whole worlds on empty stages with only minimal input or oversight from directors or director-like figures.20 Professional Jingju actors are very familiar with those conventions and do not need them to be spelled out every time they are used. Amateur Jingju actors with access to teachers to give them personal instruction also do not need those conventions spelled out in their playscripts. Amateur Jingju actors with less access to teachers or who wanted to avoid too intense contact with them (because of the formerly bad reputation of actors as a class in China) and readers such as Scott’s “theater students” would have more need and interest in more detailed stage directions. The introductory material to both Scott’s translations of kabuki and Jingju plays take care to justify the prodigious amount of stage directions that they contain; it is in this sense that his translations include a lot of “description.” Whereas a mass-market printing of Silang tanmu such as the one in Xikao 戲考 (Research into plays)21 might only use three Chinese characters to get Yanghui onstage and ready to open his mouth for the first time, a 1938 edition used 51 Chinese characters to get to the same place.22 Scott uses 423 words to get where Yanhui opens his mouth (Scott 1967, 33–34). When I first read Scott’s Silang tanmu, I thought that those stage directions had been added by him on the basis of stage versions that he had seen performed, but it turned out that most of them come from the 1938 edition of the play,23 including one on when is the best time and place to refresh your throat by drinking some tea onstage.24 Scott adjusted 20

These conventions are presented as the very “soul” of Jingju in Li (2010). The author of that book, Li Ruru, is the daughter of a famous Jingju actress and playwright, Li Yuru 李玉茹 (1924–2008) and the step-daughter of the most famous spoken drama (huaju 話劇) playwright, Cao Yu 曹禺 (1910–1996). 21 Xikao was published in 40 installments from 1912 to 1925 by Zhonghua Tushu Guan 中華圖書 館 of Shanghai. Silang tanmu appears in the second installment, which appeared in 1913. 22 See Liu (1938). For a comparison of around thirty manuscript copies or printed editions of the play, including the first three English versions treated in this paper, see Lu (2015). 23 Inexplicably, Scott (1967, vii) dates the edition to 1937, when the royalty page clearly says that the first edition appeared in the following year. 24 The stage direction appears right before Yanhui begins his first, quite long and slow, aria. See page four of the pagination for the playscript proper (which does include a dramatis personae on the first two pages) in Liu (1938; Liu’s edition has almost 80 pages of paratextual material before the playscript proper), and Scott ([1967], 35). Already in Liu’s time, the practice of having underlings bring out tea for you to drink onstage (yinchang 飲場) had become controversial as Western stage realism and its reluctance to break the “fourth wall” had become influential in China; by Scott’s time the practice had long vanished from the stage. To deal with that, Scott put the passage in the past tense and prefaced it with the phrase, “In the past.”

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his translation of this stage direction to register some of the changes between 1938 and 1967 (see footnote 24), a practice he follows elsewhere in the translation. He also expands his stage directions to include such things as the explanation of special Jingju terminology and other details he felt his audience, as opposed to that of the 1938 edition, needed to be added. When I have asked students to read Scott’s translations for Chinese theater and drama classes, the majority complain about getting lost in all of those stage directions. There is a human link between the Asian theater program that Scott ran at the University of Wisconsin and the Asian theater program at the University of Hawai’i, the program that trained Elizabeth Wichmann (a.k.a., Elizabeth WickmannWalczak) and where she taught and produced English-language versions of Jingju plays until her recent retirement. That link is Daniel S. P. Yang (Yang Shipeng 楊世彭; 1935–),25 who received an M.A. in directing at the University of Hawai’i in 1964, then got a Ph.D. on recent Chinese theater history under Scott in the Wisconsin program in 1976. He taught for two decades at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and directed student English-language productions of Jingju plays, including one of Wulong yuan 烏龍院 (under the title of Black Dragon Residence), which he also directed for the Asian theater program at the University of Hawai’i in 1972 in a production that Wichmann originally served as understudy for the female lead and then starred as the female lead when it went on tour in Hawai’i. Contrary to Scott’s practice, Yang got the students to sing the arias to recordings of the instrumental music for them26 and was able to use a 1961 film of the play starring Zhou Xinfang 周信芳 (1895–1975) to help teach the students. Some aspects of his approach to training the students were very influential on how the Hawai’i program produced English-language Jingju productions on a regular basis. Elizabeth Wichmann got her Ph.D. from the Hawai’i Asian theater program in 1983 with a dissertation on the aural dimensions of Jingju that she revised and published as a book in 1991.27 While studying in Nanjing, as one of the earliest American foreign students in the PRC after the thaw, a fortunate series of events ended up with her being assigned to the youngest disciple of Mei Lanfang, Shen Xiaomei 沈小梅 (1937–), to learn and perform the role of Prized Consort Yang (Yang guifei 楊貴妃) in the Jingju play Guifei zuijiu 貴妃醉酒 (Prized Consort Yang becomes intoxicated on wine). Her performance, in 1980, was well-received, earning her the nickname, in China, of “The Foreign Prized Consort” (Yang guifei 洋貴妃).28 Not long after she was awarded her doctorate, she joined the faculty 25

On his training and career, see Liu (2013). Although Yang wrote about the Colorado and Hawai’i productions of the play, he does not seem to have ever published the script(s) for them. He did publish both English and Chinese versions of a play he wrote based on the story of Yan Xijiao, the female lead of Wulong yuan (see Yang 2000). No arias are sung in either version, but they do make use of elements from Jingju and feature talking prop persons who announce things and try to explain elements of traditional Chinese theater to the audience. The book includes English and Chinese reviews of the student production of the play. 27 See Wichmann (1991). 28 For an example of an article whose headline uses this nickname, see Li and Liu (2002). 26

Translation of the Jingju Play Silang tanmu

19

at Hawai’i and from 1984 to 2014 directed eight productions of full-length Jingju plays in English that won acclaim not only in the US but also in the PRC, where several of them toured, beginning with the first one, which I happened to get to see performed in Beijing (for reasons to be explained below, even I had to make some use of the English subtitles projected on the sides of the stage to follow some of what was being spoken and sung in English, despite being fairly familiar with the original play). The English script for that production is the only one that has been formerly published29 (plans to publish all of the English scripts have been slowed because of her poor health). Wichmann’s Silang tanmu was the fourth of the eight and premiered in 1998.30 For each of the eight plays, under an exchange agreement with the Jiangsu Jingju Company, a team of Jingju artists (including Shen Xiaomei) who are members of that company select the play to be performed and create the versions of the Chinese scripts for each. For the last six months of the academic year in which a play is to be performed in English, a small group of specialists from the company come to Honolulu to oversee the training of the students. The Chinese script is modified to fit the students involved and other factors during the training process. Wichmann has described the process of working up the translation this way: Our aim, however, is to actually perform jingju31 in English. The English translation therefore attempts to preserve the textual and musical form, so that jingju vocal practice may be applied. For song, this means rhymed English couplets that have the same number of syllables, in the same number of phrases, as the Chinese original—and for melismatic song, the same or a related vowel sound if at all possible. Madam Shen and her colleagues then innovatively apply traditional techniques to the English circumstance. For instance, in melismatic jingju singing, the prolonged central vowel is held until the end of the melodic phrase, when it is ‘closed’ (shou) by a gentle sounding of the final vowel or ‘n’ or ‘ng’ sound—no other consonants occur at the end of Mandarin words/syllables. When this technique is applied to the English singing of a melismatic passage, the resultant ‘softening’ of English final consonants is noticeable. For instance, the couplet ‘I saw the trap and so could not comply; I will go to Father and tell him why’ sounds more like the following when this technique is applied: ‘I saw the tra pan so cou naw com ply; I wi go to fa the an te lim why’. As a result, the sung English is approximately as difficult for an English speaker to understand as is the sung Mandarin for a Mandarin speaker, and we follow the contemporary Chinese performance practice of mounting subtitles above or beside the stage. (Wichmann-Walczak 2005, 170–171)

29

The first half of the book was devoted to Wichmann’s English version and the second half to the original Chinese version. See Wichmann (1986). While this publication only credits Wichmann for the translation, the unpublished versions of the scripts that I have seen always credit a co-translator. Helen Heyue Wang is credited as the co-translator for Silang tanmu. 30 I first got to know Wichmann in 1986, when I was doing thesis research in Nanjing, when the system for quarantining foreigners that assured that we slept and ate in the same buildings facilitated meetings among us. I am very grateful to her for sharing a wide variety of materials with me over the years, including the performance script for Silang tanmu and a video-tape of one of the performances of it. 31 Wichmann prefers not to capitalize Jingju. I capitalize it because the “jing” is short for Beijing, a proper noun.

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Students learn to sing romanized (pinyin) versions of the arias first, then switch to the English versions. In the performance script, all vocal performance that must match set metrical requirements, such as lines of poetry, arias, or a character’s “opener,” use line breaks, and have each line of English followed underneath by its romanization. When necessary to make each syllable in the romanized lines match a syllable in the English line, multi-syllabic English words are split and hyphenated. The first example is Yanhui’s opener, which runs like this32 : So

long

a-

Part

my

mo-

ther

Shen

kun

you

Zhou

si

lao

mu,

Dwells

in

my

Heart

Chang

gua

xin

tou33

In this case, the English rhymes in the same places as the original Chinese does. The rhyme words in Chinese are zhou and tou and in English are part and heart. “So long apart, my mother dwells in my heart” is, however, not a very accurate translation of the original. A literal rendering of the Chinese would be: “Self trapped in Youzhou, thoughts of my old mother, long hang in my heart,” but as is the case with Western opera, a number of aspects are neglected in the Wichmann performance playscript in favor of performability. Since the Wichmann translation of Silang tanmu is a performance script for theater students studying in Hawai’i, it uses conventions such as acronyms for “stage right” (SR) and “center” (C) when neither the full nor any short forms of these terms appear in Jingju playscripts. Also rarely found in regular Jingju playscripts are stage directions concerning when the inner curtain (erdao mu 二道幕 in Chinese) is to 32

The grid does not appear in the original translation; I have added it to keep the vertical columns aligned. 33 In extant playscripts for the play, the opener takes two different forms, one like the one in the performance script: 身困幽州, 思老母, 常掛心頭 (although it is more common for the first character to be bei 被 [marks a passive construction] rather than shen [actually, since the performance text does not include Chinese characters, and I have never seen a manuscript or printed edition that had a character pronounced shen in the place of bei, I can only guess; of the possibilities, 身 seems best]; other variants include gurou 骨肉 [flesh and blood] for laomu), and an entirely different form that shares no characters with the first, Jinjing suo wutong, chang tan kong sui, yizhen feng 金井鎖梧桐, 長歎空隨,一陣風 (editions with percussion patterns notated make clear that although the number of characters in the two versions is the same, the scansion differs). Scott (1967, 34), translates the second version as “The wutong tree locked in a golden courtyard,/A long sigh carried away on the breeze.” Oddly enough, the earliest datable edition, in Liyuan jicheng, kind of smashes the two together, taking its first four characters from the second version, the fifth from the first one, the ninth from the second one (where it appears as the seventh character), and the last three also from the second version. Taiwan editions that tried to deal with the issue of Yanhui living on after being captured so the play could be publicly performed made changes such as switching out si laomu in the first version for jia guo hen 家國恨 ([I] resent [what happened to] family and nation). See Xiuding Silang tanmu 修訂四郎探母 (Revised edition of Silang tanmu; Taibei: Jiaoyu bu Zhongguo geju gailiang yanjiu weiyuan hui, 1955) and Silang tanmu 四郎探母 (Taibei: Liming wenhua, 1979). Both of those editions made more substantial additions/changes to the play to make it clear that Yanhui has remained loyal and has continued to keep the best interests of China in mind.

Translation of the Jingju Play Silang tanmu

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be drawn to create a separate performance space downstage and change the scenery upstage for the next scene.34 This use of an inner curtain first became widely popular in the PRC after the traditional prop men system (jianchang zhi 檢場制), in which sets were changed and props moved by prop men in full view of the audience, was abolished because it was supposedly not realistic enough. According to a videotape of one of the performances, which deletes the intermission between scenes three and four, the Hawai’i version of Silang tanmu runs for less than two hours. No scenes were completely deleted. The majority of the cuts involve removing or making easier performance aspects of the play that would be difficult for students who have only studied Jingju for a short time to pull off. An example would be the reduction of the length of Yanhui’s opening aria from 28 to 12 lines, leaving out all four of the metaphors in a row he uses to express how he feels (I am like... [Wo hao bi... 我好比...]), the last of which includes one of the highpoints of the play, when he compares himself to a lone goose (yan 雁) and that one word is drawn out for 24 beats and 16 separate notes.35 Other cuts seem designed to just reduce the running time (such as leaving out Yanhui’s 37-character long prose self-introduction). Wichmann has been given many awards by Chinese organizations for her work making Jingju better known in the West.36 Over the years, the governments on both Taiwan and China have invested in overseas performances of Jingju for diplomatic purposes.37 I personally, in 2015, in Beijing, during a rehearsal for an upcoming Jingju performance at Lincoln Center whose surtitles I was working on, heard one of the top officials of the organization in charge of managing the performances speak 34

The performance script for Wichmann’s translation of Feng huan chao has these kinds of stage directions but they are absent or greatly curtailed in the printed version. For instance, the stage directions in the performance version before the first character speaks takes up 255 words, while the printed version only has 37. 35 The last two figures are based on the musical notation for the play in Jingju qupu jicheng 京劇曲 譜集成 (Compendium of Jingju plays with musical notation), 10 vols. (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi, 1992–1998), 8: 9. 36 Unlike Scott, who with the one exception of Shiwu guan, only translated plays not associated with PRC policy and performance practices, Wichmann’s plays have been chosen by her Nanjing collaborators and have represented a wide spectrum of a specifically PRC repertoire, including one model opera from the Cultural Revolution, with the exception that the eight full-length plays do not reflect the fact that a majority of the items being performed are short plays or extracted scenes (zhezi xi 折子戲) but, on the other hand, parts of some of those eight plays appear on programs as extracted scenes (in the case of Silang tanmu, the first scene, which includes Yanhui’s self-introduction and his revelation of his true identity to Iron Mirror and persuasion of her to borrow the arrow of command for him, is often performed alone under the title of Zuogong 坐宮 [Sitting in the palace]). Scott has little patience with criticism of Silang tanmu for ideological reasons, and instead gives this kind of rationale for interest in the play: “To the old-time theatergoers this was a play that provided excellent opportunities for displays of technical virtuosity in most of the principal roles..., thereby providing audiences with full measure of entertainment” (1967, 24). Wichmann seems to attempt to deflect criticism of the play by, in essence, recognizing the problem by adding a subtitle to her English title for the play, Silang Visits His Mother/Love and Loyalty. 37 Zhou (2014) needs almost 400 pages to cover its topic (PRC exchange performances abroad of Chinese indigenous theater, 1949–2012).

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of them as examples of ruan shili 軟勢力 (soft power), and said that that was just as important as the more familiar hard power, concerning which he mentioned as an example parades of armed soldiers and military equipment. The third translation of Silang tanmu that I will shortly turn to is part of a PRC project that is large and ambitious and basically unimaginable without serious governmental financial support. The first batch (ji 輯), consisting of ten volumes, of a series of bilingual editions of one hundred Jingju plays, each published as a separate volume, was published in 2012. The ceremony to announce the publication of the first set was held in a big hall.38 The initial title of the series was Zhongguo Jingju baibu jingdian Yingyi xilie 中 國京劇百部經典英譯系列/ English Translation Series of a Hundred Peking Opera Classics. It has been under the general editorship of an extremely well-connected Jingju performer, activist, and scholar, Sun Ping 孫萍, Director of the Guoju Yanjiu Zhongxin 國劇研究中心 (Center of National Drama Studies) at Zhongguo renmin daxue 中國人民大學 (People’s University of China).39 Each volume, besides Sun’s forward, has prefaces by four politically important figures, beginning with a member of the Politburo. For the first batch, half of each volume is taken up with a lengthy introduction to Jingju that is exactly the same in each volume. By the time of the second batch, it was decided that to do that was a very bad idea, so that introduction was removed from the individual volumes from then on but made available as a separate volume and the title of the series was slightly changed, replacing Yingyi 英譯 (English translation) with waiyi 外譯 (foreign [language] translation).40 Each volume of the regular printings is quite expensive (they differ depending on the length of the plays, but a fairly short play from the first batch is priced at 396 RMB and Silang tanmu, which is part of the fourth batch, is priced at 420 RMB; volumes are also available in diancang ban 典藏版 or collector’s editions for approximately twice the cost). Looking at the Silang tanmu volume (Sun 2016), it has 128 pages of introductory material about the play, broken into six sections (the English titles are “Synopsis,” “Plot,”41 “Performance,” “Major Artistic Characteristics,” “Music,” and “Costume and Props”). All of this material is lavishly illustrated with color photographs taken of generally young actors in costume on what might be the same stage (with different backdrops) that appear to be posed stills. Not a single historical photograph 38

For a brief CCTV report on the ceremony, see “‘Zhongguo Jingju baibu jingdian Yingyi xilie’ xinshu fabu hui zai Jing juxing 10/27/2012” “中國京劇百部經典英譯系列” 新書發布會在京舉 行 20121027 (New book release ceremony held in Beijing for Zhongguo Jingju baibu jingdian Yingyi xilie, October 27, 2012), http://xiqu.cctv.com/2012/10/27/VIDE1355"176635516766.shtml, accessed May 7, 2021. 39 She also holds an appointment as a dean at Beijing waiguo yu daxue 北京外國語大學 (Beijing Foreign Studies University). 40 The motivation for this change is neither clear nor addressed in anything I have seen. It is true that in popular discourse in the PRC, waiyu 外語 (foreign language) is often used as a synonym for English. 41 The Chinese title for this section is actually “Juben wenxue” 劇本文學 (literature of the text), despite the fact that the section never treats the libretto as literature.

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is included, despite the fact that most of the “Performance” section is about famous actors who performed the play in the past. Except for the final two sections, there is almost no coordination between the photos, which are not numbered, captioned, or referred to in the text, and the blocks of text that they appear next to. In this edition, 38 pages are devoted to the musical notation of selected arias from the play (Iron Mirror’s opening aria, for instance, is not selected). Even-numbered pages notate the music using cipher notation (jianpu 簡譜), while the facing oddnumbered pages notate the music using the Western five bar system (wuxian pu 五線 譜).42 Both sides give the aria text in Chinese characters only, completely avoiding the issue of how well the English translation matches (or doesn’t match) the metrical and syntactic characteristics of the original Chinese text of the arias. A simple way to make this section of the book more accessible to non-Chinese speakers/readers would have been to replace the Chinese characters on the odd-numbered pages with their romanizations. As the series became better known, a common question was whether the English translations would be singable or not. Sun Ping’s reply was as follows: If the translations had been carried out in a manner that completely matched the metrical and rhyme patterns [of the original], the corresponding Chinese aria text would have to be adjusted, so after deliberation, we decided to use the present manner [of translation] that cannot be sung, but is convenient for the reading, inquiry, and drawing close to Jingju of [English] readers. 如果完全按照合轍押韻的方式進行翻譯, 相對應的中文唱詞就需有改動, 所以權衡之 後, 我們選擇了現在呈現呈的不能演唱的翻譯方式, 但却便於讀者閱讀和查詢并走進 京劇. (Li 2016)43

The Chinese and English versions of the playscript, which are formatted with the Chinese on the even-numbered pages and the translation on the facing odd-numbered pages, take up almost one hundred pages. In the listing of the editorial board for the series that appears in every volume of the series,44 a long-time participant in the English-language Jingju productions at the University of Hawai’i, Daniel Tschudi, is listed as a member of the committee for the translation of the series (he is one of nine members) and as the first name in the subcommittee for the preparation of the English portions for the volume. He is the only person on those two committees for whom Western and Chinese names are both given, and who is identified as of another nationality than Chinese.45 An announcement of Tschudi’s retirement after being coordinator for the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Hawai’i 42

Because the cipher notation is more compact than the five-line notation, the two very quickly get out of sync with each other, a problem that keeps getting worse, so that in the end the cipher notation finishes three pages before the five-line notation. 43 This online posting mentions this question and includes the quote from Sun Ping. 44 The only change between the version that appeared in the first batch and the Silang edition is the marking of the decease of one of the members by the widespread convention in Chinese publications of using black lines to form a rectangle enclosing his name. 45 Wichmann also appears, as a member of the committee on the art of Jingju, on the page listing the committees and their members. I understand from her that she has not actually been consulted about matters concerning the series.

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from 1991 to 2019 says that he was the interpreter and lead drummer for six of the full-length plays directed by Wichmann, including Silang tanmu. The announcement also lists “Polishing translations and translating 30 Chinese plays for the series 100 Chinese Opera Classics” as one of his accomplishments.46 Having worked as a foreigner in China on Jingju projects, I doubt that Tschudi was given final control over the translation of Silang tanmu and its presentation in the volume. Placing the Chinese and English versions of the plays on opposing pages is not as good of a choice as, on the same page, following each line of Chinese with its English translation, as is the case in bilingual Jingju performance surtitles.47 This allows both for ease of comparison of the two versions by the reader, and encourages the translator to make the English version mirror more closely, within the bounds of readability, as many elements of the Chinese original as possible. What is perhaps most striking about how the two versions (Chinese and English) of the playscript for Silang tanmu are handled is how much space is wasted on the pages, both by wide margins on the left and right sides, and more than necessary space between the lines, emphasized by how the phrasing in the dialogue is primarily shown by line breaks rather than punctuation in both the Chinese and English versions. Using different levels of indentation for dialogue, poetry, and aria text would have been useful. No punctuation comes at the end of typeset lines of the Chinese or English versions, and in the latter, regardless of whether a line is run-on line or not, the next line is almost always capitalized (exceptions are rare). Another problem with the translation of Silang tanmu in this series is that the stage directions are more laconic than most Chinese editions of the play. They consist (in both languages) of basically only entrances and exits, speech prefixes (the options are bai 白 [“recites” or “speaks”], chang 唱 [“sings”] and ying 應 [responds; not translated), and the banshi 板式 (aria types) of the arias are not identified. No information is given, whatsoever, for the source for the Chinese text, but it is likely that it is actually a transcript of an audio recording of the play by famous actors (as was explicitly identified as the source for one of the other plays in the series, an edition whose stage directions were as minimal as the series Silang tanmu edition). In sum, a lot of resources were mobilized to produce a product that I would think would not be very satisfying to any of its targeted audiences, if they were aware of how easily such problems as those pointed out above could have been taken care of. Although this last translation of Silang tanmu had the advantage of a budget for the provision and inclusion of stage photos, and failed to make real use of that advantage, the last translation that I want to look at, a set of subtitles for an online posting of a TV broadcast of a live production of the play, allows the viewer to watch and hear the play performed and to read both the original Chinese subtitles and the added English 46

“CCS bids farewell to Daniel Tschudi,” https://manoa.hawaii.edu/chinesestudies/features/ccsbids-farewell-to-daniel-tschudi/, accessed May 7, 2021. The official date of his retirement was August 1, 2019. 47 While it actually is quite rare to show either Chinese or English titles over the stage instead of on either side of it, I here follow the common practice of reserving “subtitles” to refer to titles displayed (primarily) at the bottom of the screen of films or TV shows, and “surtitles” to refer to the titles used for live performances.

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subtitles at the same time, and to instantly compare them. This form of translation also obviates the need for stage directions.48 This English-subtitled version of a particular performance of Silang tanmu was posted by Nikhil Chau, who has a YouTube channel49 that houses English-subtitled versions of performances of a total of four different full-length Jingju plays. The twopart set for Silang tanmu has been posted the longest (seven years). Nothing else is posted on the channel, although each posting includes notes about the translation and replies to some of the comments posted about the subtitles. Apart from the material on the YouTube channel, I have not been able to find anything else on Nikhil Chau. Nikhil is a name used, apparently, by both sexes, predominantly among South Asians in South Asia or the diaspora. Not knowing the pronouns of preference, I will refer to the subtitler as Chau. The spelling of Chau (presumably linked to the common surname Zhao 趙), would seem to indicate Chinese heritage of some sort. Chau is obviously an amateur subtitler or “fansubber.” Space limitations (so many characters at a time on the screen at once) and how subtitles are consumed50 make subtitling an entirely different proposition than paper translations of the kind looked at above. Surtitling for performances, which I have done by myself or finalized working from drafts prepared by non-native speakers of English, share a lot of the same constraints. I find the work to be a rather entertaining “game” in which you have to mobilize efficiently a wide array of resources and capabilities. While it is easy enough to point out not-so-good choices in the subtitles done by Chau, of more interest is the fact that someone would spend a lot of time doing such work and sharing it with others, and so openly requesting suggestions for improvement. Besides the pleasure the work seems to give, Chau is also stepping in to fill a need that is presently ill met for English subtitles for videos of Jingju performances. If the government of the PRC is really serious about sharing Jingju with the world, well-subtitled videos of good performances will be far more helpful and appealing than books such as the bilingual edition of Silang tanmu. I don’t think that there will ever be a big audience for editions of Jingju plays as reading material in either the original or English translation (the same could also be said of Western opera, of course). A better plan would be to take advantage of the unique capabilities of DVDs to display multiple kinds of subtitles and to give access to a wide variety of audio Additional information, such the names of the aria-types (banshi 板式) for the arias or the names of actors and the characters that they are performing can be displayed in the Chinese subtitles for TV broadcasts of Jingju performances, but none of that kind of material appears in the broadcast Chau subtitled. In it, information about the troupe and the actors is given in the recording of the broadcast before the performance starts. Suffice it to say that the troupe and actors were first-class. 49 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1Y55WqXd-IqV0KMzdJRUyA, accessed May 7, 2021. 50 It is obvious from Chau’s notes to the postings of the subtitled performance broadcasts that the work was done as an amateur and not as a professional. The industry of subtitling has come up with all kinds of recommendations/rules/guidelines on such things as how many characters should be shown on screen at once, but I don’t see any indication that Chau is familiar with them, or with subtitling conventions such as hyphens to preface new speakers, so I will not be evaluating Chau’s work from that point of view. 48

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tracks from the performers (in Chinese and in translation) and specialists (in both languages) to enable a rich, multicultural, and truly multimedia access to Jingju as a performance art.

References Baller, F.W., ed. 1911. The Fortunate Union [A Translation of the Novel Haoqiu zhuan 好逑傳]. Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press. Du Halde, Jean-Baptiste. 1739–1741. The General History of China. London: J. Watts. Fu, Jin 傅謹, ed. 2010. Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan 京劇歷史文獻彙編: 清代卷 [Collected Historical Material on Jingju; Qing Dynasty Section], 10 vols. Nanjing: Fenghuang chubanshe. Huang, Jusheng 黃菊盛. 1989. Cong Taiping xiangjiang dao xiban laoban: Liyuan jicheng bianzhe Li Shizhong kao 從太平降將到戲班老闆: 梨園集成編者李世忠考 [From Surrendered Taiping General to Theater Troupe Owner: An Investigation of the Compiler of Liyuan jicheng, Li Shizhong]. Xiqu yanjiu 戲曲研究 [Chinese Indigenous Theater Research] 29: 132–144. Idema, Wilt L. 2017. George Carter Stent (1833–1884) as a Translator of Traditional Chinese Popular Literature. Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, and Reviews 39: 119–133. Li, Jia 李佳. 2016. Yingyi Jingju jingdian: Bu neng chang, zhi neng kan 英譯京劇經典: 不能唱 只能看 [English Translations of Classic Jingju: Can’t Be Sung, Can Only Be Read]. Beijing qingnian bao 北京青年報 [Beijing Youth], December 28. http://www.ln-job.com/n1/2016/1228/ c404003-28983933.html. Accessed May 7, 2021. Li, Ruru. 2010. The Soul of Beijing Opera: Theatrical Continuity in the Changing World. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Li, Xuyuan 李緒元, and Liu Jia 劉佳. 2002. ‘Yang guifei’ de Zhongguo qingjie ‘洋貴妃’ 的中國 情結 [The ‘Foreign Prize Consort’s Attachment to China]. Huaren shikan 華人時刊 (Chinese Times) 7: 58–59. Liu, Juchan 劉菊禪, ed. 1938. Silang tanmu quanji 四郎探母全集 [Complete Collection of Silang tanmu]. Shanghai: Shanghai Xibao she. Liu, Siyuan. 2011. A. C. Scott. Asian Theatre Journal 28 (2) (Fall): 414–425. ———. 2013. Daniel S. P. Yang. Asian Theatre Journal 30 (2) (Fall): 309–322. Lu, Dawei 陸大偉 (David L. Rolston). 2015. Jingju juben zhong wutai zhishi yanhua yu leibie chutan—Yi Silang tanmu lidai gezhong banben wei li 京劇劇本中舞臺指示演化與類別初探— 以 《四郎探母》歷代各種版本为例 [An Initial Exploration of the Evolution and Types of Stage Directions in Jingju Playscripts—Using the Various Versions of Silang tanmu Over Time as Examples]. In Jingju de wenxue, yinyue, biaoyan: Diliu jie Jingju xue guoji xueshu yantao hui lunwen ji 京劇的文學, 音樂, 表演: 第六屆京劇學國際學術研討會論文集 [The Literature, Music, and Performance of Jingju: Collected Essays from the Sixth Academic Conference on Jingju-ology], ed. Fu Jin 傅謹, 793–817. Beijing: Zhongguo xiqu xueyuan. Mungello, D.E. 2012. Western Queers in China: Flight to the Land of Oz. Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield. “The Exotic Appeal of Chinese Boy-Actors,” 25–40. Scott, A.C. 1962. The Butterfly Dream: The Record of a Chinese Theatre Workshop in New York. Drama Survey 12 (1): 158–174. ———. 1967. Traditional Chinese Plays, vol. 1. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Stent, G.C. 1876. The Yellow Stork Tower [Huanghe lou 黃鶴樓]. The Far East (September): 57–66. Sun, Ping 孫萍, ed. 2016. Zhongguo Jingju baibu jingdian waiyi xilie 中國京劇百部經典外譯 系列 [Series of a Hundred Peking Opera Classics]. Silang tanmu 四郎探母 [Silang Visits His Mother/Fourth Son Visits His Mother]. Beijing: Zhongguo Renmin daxue chubanshe, Waiyu jiaoxue yu yanjiu chubanshe.

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Wang, Guojun. 2020. Staging Personhood: Costuming in Early Qing Drama. New York: Columbia University Press. Wichmann, Elizabeth. 1986. Feng huan chao 鳳還巢 [The Phoenix Returns to Its Nest]. Beijing: New World Press. Wichmann, Elizabeth. 1991. Listening to Theatre: The Aural Dimensions of Beijing Opera. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Wichmann-Walczak, Elizabeth. 2005. Jingju (Beijing/Peking ‘Opera’) as International Art and as Transnational Root of Cultural Identification: Processes of Creation and Reception in Shanghai, Nanjing, and Honolulu. In Diasporas and Interculturalism in Asian Performing Art: Translating Traditions, ed. Hae-kyung Um, 166–173. London: RoutledgeCurzon. Yan, Quanyi 顏全毅 2005. Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi 清代京劇文學史 [The History of Jingju Literature in the Qing Dynasty]. Beijing: Beijing chubanshe. Yang, Daniel S. P. (Yang Shipeng 楊世彭). 2000. Yan Xijiao: Zhong Ying wen juben yu yanchu ziliao 閻惜嬌: 中英文劇本與演出資料 [Yan Xijiao: Chinese and English Scripts and Production Materials]. Hong Kong: Tiandi tushu. Zhou, Lijuan 周麗娟. 2014. Zhongguo xiqu yishu duiwai jiaoliu gailan, 1949–2012 中國戲曲藝 術對外交流概覽, 1949–2012 [An Overview of the Exchange Abroad of Chinese Indigenous Theater, 1949–2012]. Beijing: Wenhua yishu.

David L. Rolston is Associate Professor of Chinese Language and Literature in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan. After working and publishing on traditional Chinese fiction (with an emphasis on traditional Chinese fiction commentary), he turned his attention primarily to traditional Chinese theater in general and Jingju (Peking opera) in particular. He has done translation work for Fuxing Opera School in Taiwan and taught and lectured and acted as consultant for Chinese-English book projects and performance surtitles at the National Academy of Chinese Theater Arts in Beijing. He is the author of many articles in Chinese on Jingju and recently published Inscribing Jingju/Peking Opera: Textualization and Performance, Authorship and Censorship of the “National Drama” of China from the Late Qing to the Present (Brill 2021).

A Translational History of The Dream of the Red Chamber in Japan Jindan Ni

and Lintao Qi

Abstract The Dream of the Red Chamber, also known as The Story of the Stone, is regarded as the pinnacle of Chinese literature and has been translated into many languages. Its English translation has been a subject of scholarly interest whereas much less attention is paid to its multiple translations into Japanese. The rich literary connection between China and Japan cannot be overemphasized. From Heian prose to Edo stories, Chinese classical literature has influenced and left its mark on Japanese literature. Considering the towering figure of the Red Chamber in Chinese literature and the significance of literary communication between China and Japan, this paper attempts to bring the Japanese translations of the Red Chamber into focus and map out the itineraries of its journey in Japan. The authors will scrutinize the translators’ educational background and social status to reveal how these factors contribute to the distinct features of each translation and its circulation. It is hoped that the examination of the Japanese translations of the Red Chamber will become a springboard for more research into the vibrant intersection of Chinese and Japanese literature, thus contributing to the fields of translation studies and world literature. Keywords The Dream of the Red Chamber · Japanese translation · World literature · Retranslation · Adaptation

1 Introduction As one of the four greatest classical novels (sida gudian mingzhu) in China, The Dream of the Red Chamber (Hongloumeng 红楼梦) has been acclaimed by scholars and general readers from China and elsewhere. Also known as The Story of the

J. Ni (B) RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected] L. Qi Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Qi and S. Tobias (eds.), Encountering China’s Past, New Frontiers in Translation Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0648-0_3

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Stone—hereafter Red Chamber—it was written by Cao Xueqin (1715?–1763?)1 who was born and raised in a rich noble family in Emperor Kangxi’s reign (1661–1722). However, when the throne was succeeded by Emperor Yongzheng (reign 1722–1735), the fortune of the Cao clan quickly deteriorated and their wealth was confiscated by the Emperor. Cao Xueqin’s Red Chamber contains many of his own experiences such as the rise to affluence and subsequent downfall of his clan, the struggle with poverty and the loss of his only son later in life (Feng 1998, 835; Duanmu 1998, 861). Handwritten copies of the text were first read and circulated among Cao’s close family members and friends, and then to a wider readership of literati and dilettantes. It was first printed with 120 chapters edited by Cheng Weiyuan (1745?–1818) and Gao E (1758–1815?) in 1791 with a second printed version coming out in the following year. Red Chamber has been read and cherished from the beginning. Since then, generations of readers have been enchanted by its plots and characters, its poetics and romantic expressions as well as the mysteries around its author Cao Xueqin and its allusions to historical figures and events. Hongmi, or “red mania,” refers to the fascination with this text and gives an indication of Red Chamber’s popularity among readers in China. Beginning in the late Qing dynasty, scholars have dedicated their lives to studying this magnum opus and “Redology” (Hongxue红学) is now one of the most important research fields in Chinese literary studies with hundreds of journal articles published every year in mainland China. Arguably, no other canonical work would claim such paramount status in a nation’s literary history as Red Chamber does. Red Chamber is set in an unknown dynasty, the story beginning when a stone fails to be chosen by Nüwa2 to mend the sky but is then reincarnated as a jade that the hero Jia Baoyu inherits at birth. The stone witnesses the prosperity and collapse of the Jia household, as well as the woeful fates of the women who live in the household. As the most beloved child in Rong-guo Mansion, Baoyu, unlike the other aristocratic males who are eager for power in the imperial bureaucracy, does not care for an official career. Baoyu sees men as defiled while women are as pure as water and thus to be cherished and respected. For this reason, he prefers to spend most of his time with his female cousins and maids. Baoyu is in love with Lin Daiyu, one of his female cousins,3 but their love is prohibited by family and eventually ends with Daiyu’s death at a young age. Daiyu’s sad fate is part of a pattern in Red Chamber since its women characters routinely suffer lamentable fates due to social and gender 1

In 1921, the Chinese scholar Hu Shi (1891–1962) published Hongloumeng kaozheng (a study on the Red Chamber) in which Hu argues that Cao Xueqin only wrote the first 80 chapters of Red Chamber and the last 40 chapters were pseudographs written by Gao E. See Hu Shi, “Hongloumeng kaozheng.” In Mingjia jiedu Hongloumeng [Scholars’ reading of Red Chamber], ed. Zhang Baokun. Jinan: Shandong renmin chubanshe, 1998. Since Hu Shi and the emergence of multiple hand-copied versions, it is almost a consensus that the first 80 chapters were written by Cao Xueqin while the last 40 chapters were by Gao E or someone else. As this study looks into the Japanese translations of Red Chamber, its author(s) and versions are not the concern of this chapter. 2 Nüwa 女娲 is a goddess in Chinese myths and she is said to have created humans and mended the sky. 3 It was normal practice in premodern China for cousins to be married.

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inequality. Baoyu and Daiyu’s tragedy, along with that of ill-fated women in the story, parallels the collapse of the Jia clan itself. Written in vernacular Chinese and embedded with poems, allusions, analogies, puns, and riddles, Red Chamber not only epitomizes Chinese literary tradition with displays of its virtuosity, it also succeeds “in arousing the curiosity of even the most lethargic reader” (Yu 1997, 4). The Red Chamber’s popularity and its canonical status in Chinese literature has also attracted the interest of scholars beyond China. From as early as 1830 to the late twentieth century, nine abridged English translations of Red Chamber have appeared (qtd. in Liu 2004, 2). From 1973 to 1980, Penguin published the first eighty chapters translated by the renowned British Sinologist David Hawkes (1923– 2009).4 And then with John Minford’s (1946–) translation of the last forty chapters from 1982 to 1986, a completed English translation of Red Chamber came out and opened a new epoch of circulation and readership in the Anglophone world for this venerable Chinese tale. The other completed English translation was done by the Chinese scholar Yang Xianyi (1915–2009) and his wife Gladys Yang (1919–1999) from 1978 to 1980, published by Foreign Languages Press (Waiwen chubanshe) in Beijing. Having been translated into English and more than twenty other languages, Red Chamber is regarded not only as the pinnacle of Chinese literature but also as an example of world literature considering its “mode of circulation and of reading” (Damrosch 2003, 5). Note that in discussing the connections between translation studies and world literature, Venuti states that “[w]orld literature cannot be conceptualized apart from translation” (Venuti 2013, 193) though this seems not applicable in the context of premodern East Asia. There, it was “worlds without translation” (see Denecke 2014), showing “a semblance of linguistic uniformity” (Kornicki 2018, 26). Reading Chinese literary works without their being translated into vernacular had been a normal practice where literary Chinese was a scripta franca (Denecke 2014, 209) for the Japanese literati. “[A]n educated Japanese,” as Denecke reminds us, “could read a Chinese text … without any knowledge of Chinese or any need for translation” (Denecke 2014, 204). According to the Japanese historical book Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters, 712), Chinese books had appeared in Japan around the third century via the Korean Peninsula (Steininger 2017, 139; Ni 2020, 24). From Prince Sh¯otoku (574–622)’s regency, the Japanese court started to send monks and students to China to study Buddhism, Confucianism, as well as the organization and administration of the state. Official envoys to China continued until 894, when the prominent Japanese courtier and literati Sugawara no Michizane (845–903) called a halt to it because of the political upheavals in the Late Tang period. Monks and students who were dispatched to China were one of the most important sources for Chinese books’ travelling to Japan. A record in the Chinese historical book Jiu Tangshu [Old Records of Tang, 945] shows that the Japanese envoys exchanged all the largesse bestowed upon them by the Chinese emperor with books which they could take back to Japan.5 4

The Japanese scholar and translator of Red Chamber It¯o S¯ohei recalls in his essay that Hawkes consulted It¯o’s Japanese translation when translating Red Chamber into English. See It¯o (1997). 5 Jiu Tanshu, vol. 199, Dong Yi [Eastern Land of Barbarians].

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Despite the termination of official envoys, multiple routes, such as commercial trade or migrants, for importing Chinese books into the court had contributed to bringing Chinese books directly from the continent or via the peninsular (Kornicki 2018, 133– 136; Ni 2020, 24–25) until early in the Meiji period (1868–1912), when industrialized and westernized Japan became the most powerful country in Asia. Therefore, in premodern Japan, reading and writing texts in Chinese was an integral part of intellectual activities.

2 Red Chamber in Japan: Early days of Circulation Without Translation Red Chamber, like its predecessors, went from China to Japan (thence to the world) and was read by Japanese without any translation. In 1793, only two years after Cheng Weiyuan and Gao E’s first printed edition6 in China, Red Chamber entered Japan via Nagasaki7 harbour on a merchant ship (It¯o 1988, 79) which began this work’s journey into the world. Record shows that another copy of Red Chamber was imported to Japan in 1803 and was used as a language textbook for t¯ots¯uji who interpreted the language of arriving Chinese merchants and sailors to the local Japanese (It¯o 1988, 79; Hu 1993, 5). The famous Japanese writer Takizawa Bakin (also known as Kyokutei Bakin, 1767–1848) in a letter to a friend mentioned that he was not able to buy a copy of Red Chamber from a local bookstore as they were all sold out. Bakin was writing to his friend to borrow his copy (Hu 1986, 214– 217). Bakin’s letter indicates that he read Red Chamber and, more significantly, it reveals the fact that copies, even if quite limited, were available in bookstores in Japan. However, Bakin did not adapt the work as he did with other Chinese classical novels such as Water Margin, or The Plum in the Golden Vase. Red Chamber was not translated or adapted by any yomihon8 (literally, “books for reading”) writers in the Edo period (1603–1868) and not a single one of its characters or plot lines was painted and printed by the illustrators of ukiyoe (literally, “pictures of the floating world”).9 Thus, compared with other Chinese novels, Red Chamber remained much less known among general Japanese readers. https://zh.m.wikisource.org/wiki/%E8%88%8A%E5%94%90%E6%9B%B8/%E5%8D% B7199%E4%B8%8A. Access on 19th of October 2021. 6 There were many hand-copied manuscripts of the first eighty chapters in circulation before Cheng Weiyuan and Gao E’s edited 120 chapters printed in 1791. The existent earliest hand-copied manuscript dates to 1754. 7 The Edo Shogunate (1600–1868) forbade international trades other than the trades with China and the Netherlands, and Nagasaki was the only harbour that opened for trade. 8 Yomihon is a genre of literature common in the Edo period and adaptations from Chinese vernacular (baihuawen) novels were quite popular. 9 Perhaps some of the characters and plots of Red Chamber were painted and printed in the Edo era though none of those have survived to the present which also indicates its unpopularity.

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In 1877, the Chinese intellectual and diplomat Huang Zunxian (1848–1905) went to Japan for an official mission with the ambassador He Ruzhang (1838–1891). ¯ ochi Teruna (1848–1882), a Japanese aristocrat who was keen There, Huang met Ok¯ on Chinese learning and interested in “brush talk” (hitsudan in Japanese, bitan in Chinese) with Chinese or Korean people. These “brush talks” between the Chinese mission and Japanese intellectuals were meticulously recorded and preserved by ¯ ochi and one of the episodes is particularly noteworthy. While discussing Chinese Ok¯ novels available in Japan, Huang Zunxian was surprised to find that the group of Japanese who they were brush-talking with did not know about Red Chamber. Huang informed the group that Red Chamber was “the best novel in human history and it will shine eternally like the Sun or the Moon” (Chen 2005, 648). “It is a shame,” Huang lamented, that the Japanese “don’t know the language, thus can’t fully appreciate its ¯ ochi indicated that The Tale of Genji might subtlety” (Chen 2005, 648). Although Ok¯ ¯ ochi rival Red Chamber, he did later read Red Chamber and become an admirer. Ok¯ even wished to translate it using kundoku which is a glossing technique rendering Chinese literary works into Japanese vernacular (Chen 2005, 658) with the aim of making them more accessible to Japanese readers so as to expand circulation. ¯ ochi Teruna died at a young age (34) and he was not able to realize Unfortunately, Ok¯ his aspiration of translating Red Chamber (It¯o 1997, 23).

3 The Abridged Translations: A Germination After Japan’s Meiji Restoration (Meiji ishin) in 1868, the new Meiji government promoted Western learning and lifestyle in order to realize the industrialization and modernization of Japan. Although intellectuals such as Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835– 1901) advocated the embrace of Western knowledge and the abolition of Chinese learning as well as Chinese characters in the Japanese language, literary Chinese (wenyan in Chinese) and kangaku (Chinese learning) continued to occupy a respected position in the literary and research activities of intellectuals. For instance, the doyens ¯ of the Meiji period such as Natsume S¯oseki (1867–1916) and Mori Ogai (1862– ¯ 1922) were all well-educated in Chinese scholarship. It is said that Ogai had a copy of Red Chamber that contained his annotations in chapters 1–6 (Sun 2006, 14–15). This might suggest that he only read six chapters of the work in which baihuawen ¯ (vernacular Chinese) is used, a challenge even for scholars such as Ogai who excelled at literary Chinese. Red Chamber remained untranslated until the Japanese Sinologist Mori Kainan (1863–1911) rendered the first chapter in 1892. Born in an erudite family familiar with Chinese learning, Kainan was known for his excellence in composing Chinese poems (kanshi) in the Meiji period. As a matter of fact, both Kainan and his father Mori Shunt¯o (1819–1889) were among the Japanese intellectuals who had “brush talk” with Huang Zunxian, who, as we mentioned earlier, told his Japanese counterparts how great Red Chamber was. Kainan was fascinated by the work and in his essay “Comments on the Dream of the Red Chamber,” he exalted Red Chamber as the

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finest Chinese novel. He declared that even after reading it dozens of times within ten years, he would continue reading it for the rest of his life (It¯o 1988, 81). Kainan is not only the first scholar who translated Red Chamber (even though just one chapter), in his essay he also inaugurated research on Red Chamber in Japan.10 As a poet and a scholar of Chinese, Kainan’s translation attempts to keep as many Chinese idioms and expressions in his translation. He also adopted an archaic Japanese vernacular writing style to render the classical flavour of the original. In the same year after Kainan translated the first chapter, another eminent Meiji writer Shimazaki T¯oson (1872–1943) translated a section from chapter 12 in which one of the male characters, Jia Rui, dies of excessive ejaculation because he indulges himself in looking at the illusion of Wang Xifeng, the lady that he desperately longs for, in the “mirror for romance” (fengyue baojian).11 T¯oson’s translation was published in Jogaku zasshi (literally, “magazine for the education of women,” 1885– 1904), which is Japan’s first women’s magazine aiming to introduce Christianity and Western ways to its readers. In her study on the connections between T¯oson and Red Chamber, Ikeda Riyoko notes pointedly that T¯oson deliberately omitted details of Jia Rui’s excessive masturbation as inappropriate for a women’s magazine aiming to impart Christian values (Ikeda 2012, 45). Regarding the reason why T¯oson chose to translate this section of Red Chamber, Ikeda speculates that T¯oson may have wanted to guard himself and his readers against becoming obsessed with love or sex in the way Jia Rui does (Ikeda 2012, 45). Considering the nature of the magazine, one can surmise that T¯oson translated this section for a didactic purpose. However, as one of the representative poets of Romanticism in Meiji era, T¯oson’s choice reveals how this particular section which abounds with romantic elements (e.g., magical mirror, dream, lust) dovetails with his literary stance. Unlike Kainan, as a poet of Japanese vernacular language, T¯oson maximizes the usage of kana in his translation, elaborating on a waka (Japanese poem with 31 syllables) style of rhythm and poetics.

4 Precursor to the Complete Translation: The Kundoku Technique After Kainan and T¯oson, several abridged translations of Red Chamber were done by multiple scholars: Sasakawa Rinp¯u (1870–1949) translated chapter 1 and the end of chapter 120 in 1896; Nagai Kinp¯u (1868–1926) translated chapter 45 in 1903; Miyagi Raij¯o (1871–1933) translated chapter 6 in 1905; Kishi Shunp¯ur¯o translated the first 39 chapters in 1916; Shionoya On (1878–1962) translated the first chapter and chapter 120 in 1919; Inoue K¯obai (1881–1979) translated the first chapter in 10

In fact, Mori Kainan’s research on Red Chamber is even earlier than the “New Redology (xin hongxue)” in China. New Redology refers to the studies on Red Chamber after the May Fourth Movement in 1919. 11 This English translation of “fengyue baojian” is borrowed from David Hawkes. See David Hawkes’ translation of The Story of the Stone.

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1919. Kainan and T¯oson’s translations have apparently expanded the circulation of Red Chamber in Japan, and then inspired and encouraged later scholars and writers to read and translate Red Chamber. It is worth noting though that during this period translating a single chapter from Red Chamber seems to be a common practice; only Kishi Shunp¯ur¯o managed to translate 39 chapters and the reason why he did not continue his translation is unclear. As Lefevere remarks, “[t]ranslations are produced under constraints that go far beyond those of natural language—in fact, other constraints are often much more influential in the shaping of the translation than are the semantic or linguistic ones” (Lefevere 1982, 7). Not until 1922 Kokumin bunko kank¯o kai (National literary collection press) published a series of Japanese translations of Chinese books (kokuyaku kanbun taisei) and this included a translation of the first 80 chapters of Red Chamber by Hiraoka Ry¯uj¯o (dates uncertain) and K¯oda Rohan (1867–1947). The main text was translated by Ry¯uj¯o while Rohan wrote the preface, annotations, and a synopsis of the last 40 chapters. Although Ry¯uj¯o is the first translator of the 80 chapters of Red Chamber, not much is known about him. According to Morinaka Miki, Ry¯uj¯o’s original name is Hiraoka J¯utar¯o; he was born in Kumamoto Prefecture and was a folk researcher active during the Taish¯o (1912–1926) and Sh¯owa periods (1926–1989) (Morinaka 2010, 109). Ry¯uj¯o was an expert in both literary and vernacular Chinese and he compiled a Japanese-Chinese dictionary with fellow scholars (Morinaka 2010, 109). Compared with Ry¯uj¯o, K¯oda Rohan is a more renowned writer in the Meiji period and, along with Ozaki K¯oy¯o (1868–1903), he inaugurated “k¯oro jidai,” or “an era of K¯oy¯o and Rohan.” Excelling in Chinese language and literature, Rohan not only collaborated with Ry¯uj¯o in translating Red Chamber, but he also translated Water Margin and published it in the same series as Red Chamber. One of the most distinctive features of this translation is that it adopts the technique of kundoku (literally, “gloss-readings”), which had been used to read Chinese texts from as early as the seventh or eighth century when Buddhist sutras were transmitted to Japan via Korea (Kornicki 2018, 166). David Lurie in his seminal study Realms of Literacy: Early Japan and the History of Writing astutely defines kundoku “as a complex of practices that associate logographs of Chinese origin with Japanese words and transpose the resulting words into Japanese order while adding necessary grammatical elements, thereby producing an actual or imagined vocalization in Japanese” (Lurie 2011, 175). The first translation of 80 chapters from Red Chamber using kundoku is rooted in the age-old practice of reading Chinese texts in Japanese vernacular. However, the language in Red Chamber is not pure literary Chinese; rather it is a mixture of the literary and vernacular. As Qi reminds us, “the hybridity of classical Chinese and the vernacular is a prevalent feature of vernacular novels” whose “writers reproduced real-life conversations, be them standard or dialectical” (Qi 2018, 21–22). This hybridity of Red Chamber was no doubt a big challenge for Ry¯uj¯o when applying the kundoku technique which had been used to read literary Chinese for hundreds of years in Japan. In order to translate Red Chamber using kundoku while respecting its vernacular Chinese features, Ry¯uj¯o (arguably along with Rohan) chose to retain kunten (diacritic transposition marks and phonographic annotations, see Lurie 2011, 184) in the main text while at the same time using

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hiragana as phonetic notation to the Chinese characters (see Fig. 1). Both hiragana notations and kunten make kundoku an effective method of translation for a hybrid work such as Red Chamber.

Fig. 1 The first page from Kokuyaku kanbun taisei K¯or¯omu [A Japanese translation of Red Chamber]. Courtesy of National Diet Library, Japan

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5 Multiple Complete Translations: A Full Bloom The first translation of all 120 chapters of Red Chamber was begun by Matsueda Shigeo (1905–1995) in 1936. The work was interrupted by the Second World War, but he managed to complete his translation and finally had it published in 1951. Matsueda was a graduate in 1930 of the department of Chinese philosophy and literature at Tokyo Imperial University (now Tokyo University) and since then had been active translating the works of modern Chinese writers such as Lu Xun (1881–1936), Zhou Zuoren (1885–1967), and Guo Moruo (1892–1978) (see Iikura and Ogawa 2019, 223–231). He was also a member of the Chinese Studies Association established by Takeuchi Yoshimi (1908–1977) and Takeda Taijun (1912–1976). Matsueda’s passion for Chinese literature cannot be overemphasized. According to It¯o S¯ohei, Matsueda had been interested in the Red Chamber since high school when he read Shionoya On’s public lectures on Chinese literature in 1919.12 In 1929, Matsueda wrote his graduate thesis on Red Chamber in which he announced, “I strongly wish that one day I can translate Red Chamber, the book that I fell deeply in love with, into Japanese, the language that I love” (qtd. in Song 2015, 128). When he started translating Red Chamber in the early 1930s, he had not yet signed a contract with any publisher. In 1940, Iwanami Shoten, a publishing company famous for Japanese classical literature, dictionaries, and academic research, invited Matsueda to publish his translation. Iwanami also paid royalties to Matsueda in advance which meant he could afford to focus on the translating work in a rural retreat after he resigned from his position at Tokyo Imperial University (Matsueda 1998, 236–237).13 In Bourdieuian terms, the economic capital the translator acquired from Iwanami enabled him to concentrate on the translation of Red Chamber, an enterprise made possible by his cultural capital (Bourdieu 1986). Although the publication process was interrupted by the war, both Matsueda and Iwanami persevered with this project which they brought to fruition with the publication of the complete translation in 1951. Matsueda was not satisfied with his work and he admitted in one of his essays that after completing the project, he realized there were many errors and misunderstandings (Matsueda 1998, 229). He was determined to translate it again and did so between 1972 and 1985, with support from Iwanami Shoten. In the Afterword to this revised edition, he explains what compelled him to devise the retranslation: At the time when I first translated Red Chamber, there were only two versions of the 120chapter manuscript and one version of 80 chapters and very little scholarship on the Red Chamber. Besides the fact of there being so few resources, my previous translation was an outcome of my own incapability and I knew this from the outset. Despite its many defects, it gained some readers, and I am blessed with the opportunity to retranslate it after 30 years.

12

Recall Shionoya On translated the first and the 120th chapter of Red Chamber in 1919. Matsueda Shigeo in his essay “Iwanami bunko to K¯or¯omu to watashi to [Iwanami, Red Chamber and myself]” recalls how he was supported by Iwanami Shoten. See Matsueda bunsh¯u [Collective works of Matsueda], vol. 1. Tokyo: Ky¯uko shoin, 1998.

13

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J. Ni and L. Qi This is a bliss for me. I wish to express my deep gratitude to my readers and Iwanami Shoten (Matsueda 1972, 347).14

According to Venuti (2003, 36), discovery of new versions of the source text, and advancement of scholarship which produces novel interpretations of the source text are often among the motivating factors for retranslations. In a similar vein, retranslations typically establish their legitimacy by claiming that they are closer to the source text (Pym 1998, 82–83). For Matsueda, it was important to be “as close to Cao Xueqin’s original as possible” (Matsueda 1940, 10). The multiple versions of manuscripts that were not available when he first translated Red Chamber, along with the progress made by scholars in Redology, provided Matsueda with more resources to interpret and retranslate Red Chamber. His readiness to revisit the entirety of his own translation shows the strength of Matsueda and Iwanami Shoten’s willingness to present an improved version of Cao Xueqin’s original. As one of the most influential and respected publishers in Japan, Iwanami Shoten’s symbolic capital greatly expanded the readership of Red Chamber. Matsueda’s retranslation turned out to be a success, as can be seen from the fact that his retranslated Red Chamber was reprinted 20 times from 1972 to 2005 (Song 2015, 143). As mentioned before, Matsueda taught Chinese literature at Tokyo Imperial University before he resigned and focused on translating Red Chamber. During his brief teaching period at the university, Matsueda met his student It¯o S¯ohei (1925– 2009) who was also an admirer of Red Chamber and wrote a thesis about it. In the 1960s, the publisher Heibonsha, which, like Iwanami Shoten, was also known for its educational and scholarly books, planned to publish a series of classical Chinese literary works and Matsueda was on the committee of editors. Matsueda wanted to retranslate Red Chamber and incorporate it into Heibonsha’s series, but he could not obtain consent from Iwanami Shoten. Matsueda then asked It¯o to translate Red Chamber and publish with Heibonsha (It¯o 1997, 27). From 1957 to 1960, It¯o translated 120 chapters of Red Chamber. For the first 80 chapters, It¯o used Yu Pingbo’s edition, which was based on extensive and critical study of existing manuscripts of Red Chamber. When Yu’s edition was published in 1958 by Renmin wenxue chubanshe (People’s Literature Publishing House, hereafter: PLPH), the Chinese intellectual Zhou Zuoren sent a copy of it to Matsueda who gave it to It¯o (1997, 27). It is fair to say that It¯o’s translation is proof and product of the veneration for Red Chamber shared by all Chinese and Japanese scholars involved. In other words, It¯o’s retranslation of the Red Chamber was the product of a marriage between the habitus and various forms of capital of scholars from both the source culture and the target culture. Habitus and capital are both notions put forward by Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological studies. In the field of translation studies, the habitus of a translator is the elaborate result of his/her personalized social and cultural history (Simeoni 1998, 32), and “it is always the habitus of a translator that influences the way translation is practiced” (Gouanvic 2005, 164). 14

Translations of Japanese texts quoted in this chapter, unless otherwise indicated, are the work of the author of this chapter.

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Although previous translators were all sinologists and excelled in Chinese learning, It¯o is a sinologist with a particular expertise in Redology. He studied Chinese philosophy and literature at Tokyo Imperial University and his thesis on Red Chamber was undertaken with guidance and support from Matsueda. Besides translation, It¯o dedicated himself to researching Red Chamber and he is the most prolific and influential Redologist in Japan (Ding 2005, 4–5). His paper “The Circulation of Red Chamber in Japan” (It¯o 2008, 174–222) is the foundational work that maps out the itineraries of Red Chamber’s reception in Japan from the late Edo period to modern times. From its authorship to its manuscript versions, from its language to its structure, It¯o’s research interest covers almost every aspect of Red Chamber. In his essay “A Perspective on Redology,” It¯o states that “as non-native scholars of Red Chamber, we should be determined to deliver as remarkable research outcomes as native scholars do” (It¯o 1997, 19). For It¯o, Redologists outside China can provide different perspectives which then enrich the overall study of Red Chamber. It¯o’s researcher habitus, therefore, is surely going to find its expression in his translation and retranslation of the Red Chamber. Like his teacher Matsueda, It¯o was not satisfied with his first translation and so he retranslated Red Chamber in 1970, 1973, and 1997. An important reason for It¯o’s decision to revisit his previous work has been the continually updated research around Red Chamber’s manuscripts (the same motivating factor for Matsueda’s retranslation). It is notable that both Matsueda and It¯o undertook extensive retranslation of their own previous work multiple times. This is not a common practice in many other cultures where a canonical work may also be retranslated, but by different translators. Notwithstanding the relative rarity in practice, the urge to retranslate one’s own work seems to be shared by researcher-translators. For example, David Roy, the late translator of the most recent English version of another classical Chinese novel Jin Ping Mei (known as Golden Lotus or A Plum in the Golden Vase in English), once commented that he would keep rounding out his published translation including the annotations, if time permits (Qi 2018, 128). The researcher habitus, which constantly incorporates the advancement of scholarship on the source text into the researcher-translator’s updated interpretation, is often the driving force for self-retranslations. We must bear in mind that Matsueda and It¯o’s persistence in renewing, updating, and revising Red Chamber in line with new developments in its scholarship would not have been possible without the support of Iwanami Shoten and Heibonsha. This collaboration between the translators and their publishers can be seen as a clear manifestation of what Bourdieu calls “collective belief”: “[t]he work of art is an object which exists as such only by virtue of the (collective) belief which knows and acknowledges it as a work of art” (Bourdieu 1993, 35). Suffice it to say that translators and their publishers believe in the literary value of Red Chamber and it is their belief that makes translation and retranslation possible in Japan. The translators, with their cultural capital and social capital acquired from their education, research, and academic network, are thus able to competently carry out the translation and retranslation of Red Chamber. The publishers provide necessary economic capital for

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these various (re)translation projects, and then use their symbolic capital to promote the circulation, reception, and success of the (re)translated texts. In 1980, the publishing house Sh¯ueisha published another scholar, Iizuka Akira’s (1907–1989) completed translation of Red Chamber. Significantly, what made this project possible was the invitation to Iizuka Akira from Sh¯ueisha to translate this Chinese magnum opus. Translating such a massive work would need, again, the “collective belief” of both the publisher and the translator. Iizuka graduated from the department of Chinese philosophy and literature at Tokyo Imperial University and went to study in China during the war. Iizuka not only translated Chinese classical novels, but also translated Chinese modern literary works such as Fate in Tears and Laughter (Tixiao yinyuan) by Zhang Henshui (1895–1967) and Family (Jia) by Ba Jin (1904–2005). Unlike Matsueda and It¯o who had both done extensive and significant research into Red Chamber, Iizuka was more of a translator than a Redologist. His work on modern Chinese novels might suggest his interest in literary works written in modern Chinese language. After the 1919 May Fourth Movement in China, classical Chinese was criticized and renounced by intellectuals who thenceforth exclusively advocated studies in vernacular Chinese. Most of the novels written after 1919 used xin baihua (new vernacular Chinese) instead of jiu baihua (old vernacular), the language adopted in works such as Red Chamber. In his translation, Iizuka informs his readers that, unlike Matsueda and It¯o who accessed many editions of Red Chamber, conducted exhaustive research, and furnished their translations with annotations, the main source text he uses is the one published by PLPH. By way of explanation, he writes that: [T]he research and collation of Red Chamber in mainland China have been progressing since 1957 and, in the 1970s, a well-collated text of Red Chamber was published by PLPH. I think it is also important to introduce the text that has been widely read by Chinese general readers… Considering the PLPH text’s high accessibility to readers, I have used footnotes instead of endnotes so that the text can be read more easily. For some words or expressions that are self-evident to Chinese readers but obscure for Japanese readers, I incorporated their meanings into the main translated text. Of course, one of the most important reasons for my translation choices is to cater for a more general readership, but I never forgot for a moment that Red Chamber is a masterpiece and I wished to fully convey Red Chamber to my readers without doing harm to the original. (Iizuka 1980, 470–471)

Iizuka’s remarks here reveal the difference between his stance and that of previous translators. It is his intention to give Red Chamber a wider circulation through an easy-to-read text. This aim is also evidenced by Iizuka’s acceptance of the invitation to work with Sh¯ueisha which is a press that focuses on entertainment and is popular for its manga magazines such as Weekly Sh¯onen Jump and Jump Square. Thus, choosing PLPH’s popularized version of Red Chamber as his source text and publishing his translation with a publisher oriented towards popular culture attest to Iizuka’s aim of moving Red Chamber beyond the realm of specialized readers. A retranslation, contends Venuti (2003, 29), often foregrounds its intention to “make an appreciable difference” from extant translations. Iizuka made great efforts to highlight that his translation is intended for a different readership from Matsueda and It¯o, while Matsueda and It¯o both based their (re)translations on either newly

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uncovered versions of the source text or alternative scholarly interpretations of the Red Chamber. Another frequently used reason to justify retranslations is the temporal factor. The ageing of translation is a well-documented topic in translation studies. As Berman (1992, 176) observes, “any translation is bound to age,” and retranslation is the destiny of all translations of canonical literary works. This can be demonstrated by the 2014 retranslation of Red Chamber produced by Inami Ry¯oichi (1953–), who has made some insightful comments on the dated nature of literary translations. Indeed, literary canons distinguish themselves with their transcendental capacity to appeal to readers from all cultures, but for foreign readers to best appreciate their literary prowess, each generation of readers might need their own retranslation, which carries the canonical works across linguistic and cultural, and spatial and temporal barriers to situate them in the target readers’ contemporary socio-cultural context. The most recent Japanese translation of the complete Red Chamber was done by Inami Ry¯oichi (1953-) in 2014 and, like Matsueda’s translation and retranslations, it was published by Iwanami Shoten. Inami’s translation took 15 years. Beginning work on it without a book contract from any publisher (Song 2018, 255), it was not until he had finished a third of the translation that he received support from an editor at Iwanami Shoten. Inami’s translation is praised by critics and general readers; it also won him the Yomiuri Prize for Scholarship and Translation in 2014. In an interview, Inami recalls how he had been fascinated by Red Chamber since high school and because he wanted to read the original from the moment he encountered the Japanese translation, he studied classical Chinese literature at Kyoto University which is renowned for its teaching in this field (Inami 2015, 2). Inami was particularly interested in the human relations and occupations depicted in Red Chamber and that is why he added many notes concerning those points (Inami 2015, 3). The changing nature of relations between characters in the book and their shifting status were a significant challenge that Inami faced during translation. When asked if he is concerned that his translation might eventually be forgotten since it was translated for contemporary readers, Inami replied: That’s perfectly all right with me. I believe all translation is something like that, that it goes out of date some day. If it becomes obsolete, someone else can translate it again. My belief that no translation can perfectly correspond to its source text reassures me and allows me to take some liberties in my translation work (Inami 2015, 4).

The liberties that Inami has taken lie in his willingness to use contemporary Japanese language such as many onomatopoeic and mimetic words which are ubiquitous in contemporary Japanese. In the Afterword to his translation, Inami borrows Walter Benjamin’s idea of angels who vanish into non-existence after they sing carols to God. He sees there an analogy by which translations are understood to be angels who sing carols to a god in the form of the original text on which they are based. Inami’s admiration for Red Chamber is amply shown as he wishes that his translation may be just such an angel with the honour of singing its “carol” before the original (Inami 2014, 320).

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And just as angels are destined to melt into nothing after completing their singing task, translations may rightly also disappear. However, the angels (the translations) are essential for preserving the vitality of their God (the original). In other words, through translations, the original remains great and its readership expands.

6 A Flourish of Abridged Translations: With Special Attention to a Translation Relayed from English As mentioned previously, before the appearance of Hiraoka Ry¯uj¯o’s translation of the first 80 chapters, multiple abridged translations of Red Chamber had shown up and their contributions to the later full translations are substantial. According to Song (2019, 124–125), from 1923 to date, seven abridged translations were produced by different translators, not to mention several edited translations. Most of the abridged translations were published in various anthologies of Chinese literature or World literature, promoting Red Chamber’s significance as an unneglectable heritage of Chinese literature and world literature. Among all the abridged translations, Sat¯o Ry¯oichi’s (1907–1994) translation relayed from Lin Yutang’s (1895–1976) English rendition of Red Chamber is a unique case worthy of special attention. After graduating from Keio University, Sat¯o Ry¯oichi worked as a journalist at Mainichi Shinbun (lit. daily news, one of the biggest newspapers in Japan) and then was sent to China as a war correspondent during the Sino-Japanese war (1937–1945). In 1947, Sat¯o went back to Japan and started translating English works into Japanese. He translated more than 100 English works, including the Nobel Laureate Pearl Buck’s (1892–1973) The Good Earth and the English works written by the prominent Chinese writer and translator Lin Yutang (1895–1976). Born in a Christian minister’s family, Lin received a western style education in Shanghai and went to North America to pursue a doctoral degree at Harvard University. His study at Harvard was interrupted by a financial problem but he later obtained the doctoral degree from the University of Leipzig, Germany. Lin is well-versed in both Chinese and English and most of his major works, such as Moment in Peking and My Country and My People, were written in English. Through his prolific career, Lin was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1940 and 1950. Although Lin’s eldest daughter Lin Rusi (1923–1971) mentioned in her introduction to the Chinese edition of Moment in Peking about her father’s intention of translating Red Chamber into English (Lin 2016, 2), the manuscript of Lin’s translation was not found until the Chinese scholar Song Dan discovered it in a city library in Japan (Zhang 2015). The manuscript consists of 64 chapters, along with Lin Yutang’s introduction and explication. Lin Yutang did not translate the entirety of Red Chamber, but he selected important contents of the 120 chapters from the original because he thought the original would be too complicated for English readers to follow (Song 2015, 219).

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The reason why Lin did not have his own translation published but sent it to Sat¯o instead, hoping Sat¯o could retranslate it into Japanese is an enigma. It is hard to conjecture the reason without further circumstantial, textual evidence. In the Afterword of his translation of Lin’s Red Chamber, Sat¯o writes about how he came to translate Red Chamber from Lin’s English translation: Before translating Dr. Lin [Lin Yutang]’s English translation of Red Chamber, I have translated several of his English novels such as Moment in Peking [Ch. Jinghua yanyun], Ms. Tu [Ch. Du Shiniang], and The Vermilion Gate [Ch. Zhumen]. Therefore, Dr. Lin and I have been close friends for quite a long time and we met every time he came to Japan…In November 1973, Dr. Lin sent me his English translation of Red Chamber which took him ten years to complete, saying that he wished me to translate it into Japanese and publish it in Japan within two years. I felt the huge responsibility on my shoulder, but as I have translated Dr. Lin’s works before, I started trying to translate his brilliant English translation [of Red Chamber]. I exchanged letters with Dr. Lin more than ten times when I encountered some questions during translation. However, as I had teaching and other work duty, my translation did not progress as I wished. Dr. Lin passed away on the 26th of March 1976 in Hong Kong at the age of 81. And now I can only dedicate my Japanese translation to him before his tombstone. (Sat¯o 1983, 248–249)

Sat¯o’s account purports to show the affinity between Lin and himself. Having translated Lin’s important English works, Sat¯o was considered by Lin Yutang as the most suitable person to translate Lin’s Red Chamber. This case study, unique in several aspects, has wider implications in translation studies. In the first place, until recently, the Japanese target text circulated among its readers without any publicly accessible source text. While it is true that in translation history there are cases where translations outlive their source texts, the fact that Sat¯o’s alleged source text had never previously been sighted by other readers gives his translation, at least temporarily, the status of a pseudo-translation. Second, before the rediscovery of Sat¯o’s alleged English source text, his Japanese translation assumed the role of its source text (i.e. a translation devised by Lin from Chinese). Anyone who attempts to understand how Lin interpreted and received the Red Chamber would necessarily need to turn to Sat¯o’s Japanese translation for some insights. Third, Sat¯o’s recount of his social capital (i.e. his personal connection with Lin) lends authenticity, originality, and authority to his Japanese translation. He does not need to belabour his selection of source text from the many Chinese versions or to legitimate his new translation by capitalizing on the advancement of scholarship on the Red Chamber, because his target text would immediately stand out as being genetically distinguishable from all the other extant Japanese translations rendered from a Chinese source text. Simply put, without public access to Lin’s English version, Sat¯o virtually turns Lin into a co-producer of his Japanese translation. As such, the reputation of the Chinese source text, the symbolic capital of Lin, and the cultural and symbolic capital of Sat¯o were orchestrated to optimize the circulation and reception of Sat¯o’s Japanese target text.

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7 Murder in the Red Chamber: A Contemporary Japanese Adaptation of Red Chamber The Japanese mystery writer Ashibe Taku (1958-) wrote K¯or¯omu no satsujin (Murder in the Red Chamber, hereafter: Murder) in 2004 and this first contemporary adaptation of Red Chamber took Ashibe 10 years to finish. Adapting a classical literary work (in either Chinese or Japanese) into a mystery is not a unique achievement of Ashibe. In fact, the Japanese writer Yamada F¯utar¯o (1922–2001) adapted Jin Ping Mei, which is one of the most important classical works in China, into Mysterious Jin Ping Mei (Japanese: Y¯oi Kinbeibai). Similarly, Okada Shachihiko (1907–1993) wrote Kaoru Daish¯o to Niou Miya (Captain Kaoru and Prince Niou) in which Murasaki Shikibu (author of The Tale of Genji) and Sei Sh¯onagon (author of the Pillow Book) compete to solve the mysterious death of Ukifune (a female protagonist in Genji). Ashibe’s adaptation of Red Chamber re-establishes this literary phenomenon of the popularization of a classical work by adapting it into a mystery. In Murder, a series of killings take place in Daguan yuan (lit: grand view garden) where Jia Baoyu and female protagonists reside with their servants. The novel exquisitely depicts the prosperity and magnificence of the Red Chamber from its opening scene when Jia Yuanchun, the imperial concubine, returns to visit her family. The exalted setting of the Jia household at the start contrasts with the later atrocious murders that claim several girls’ lives. Jia Baoyu is turned into an investigator and together with Lai Shangrong,15 he tackles the murders. In order to write this suspense novel, Ashibe not only consulted existing Japanese translations of Red Chamber, but he also watched the TV drama series broadcast in China in 1987 with the aim of finding out which scenes are selected for dramatic effect (Ashibe 2007, 441). As Inami Ritsuko (1944–2020) comments, Murder is a work that was written after a thorough reading and understanding of Red Chamber (Inami 2007, 447). Although no murders occur in the original, the violence that young girls encounter is no less horrifying. Examples of this are Jinchuan’s suicide due to the wrongful denunciation of Lady Wang, and Yingchun’s death at the hands of her husband Sun Shaozu. The Red Chamber in Cao Xueqin’s original is by no means a utopia where young girls and boys live peacefully and freely. On the contrary, it is a violent world under the cover of its nobility, elegance, and romance, and Ashibe has revealed this through his adaptation.

15

Lai Shangrong is the son of Lai Da, who is the chief steward of Rong-guo Mansion. In Red Chamber, Lai Shangrong is not an important character who does not have any stories depicted around him.

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8 Conclusion It is safe to conclude that both research and translation of Red Chamber in Japan have been thriving in terms of the sheer amount of work done as well as the quality of its results. Indeed, the level of attention paid to this canonical text is virtually unheard of among non-Japanese scholars. For instance, there are only two complete English translations of Red Chamber and few Anglophone sinologists have done as far-reaching and comprehensive research on the text as their Japanese counterparts. Moreover, the kind of specialized work attempted in the present essay dealing with the circulation and translation of Red Chamber in the wider world is still a relatively new field and is even rarer among Anglophone scholars. A key feature of this field is its focus on the intercultural influence and communication between China and Japan throughout their long history which cannot be overemphasized. From Hiraoka Ry¯uj¯o and K¯oda Rohan’s translation of the first 80 chapters to Inami’s latest version we see that approaches to Red Chamber have shifted from a comprehensive application of the kundoku glossing technique to the use of more contemporary Japanese language. At the same time, there has been a marked move away from an academic focus to work aimed at a less specialized or general readership. Generations of Japanese sinologists have done extensive research on Red Chamber and there are many complete or abridged Japanese translations, as well as an adaptation to the detective story genre. Given the amount of attention the work has received in Japan, a question yet to be addressed is why the popularity of Red Chamber among general readers there is still quite limited when compared with other Chinese classical novels such as Three Kingdoms. It might be because works like Three Kingdoms and Water Margin were adapted into Japanese stories by writers of the calibre of Bakin. Contributing to the success of these stories is the fact that in the Edo period, ukiyo-e were also painted and printed based on characters from these other texts. Contemporary manga and references in video games help to further foster the interest of the reading public in these other texts. Venuti sums up the reason why a given work will do well in translation: “Far from reproducing the source text,” he claims, “a translation rather transforms it by inscribing an interpretation that reflects what is intelligible and interesting to its audience” (Venuti 2013, 506). Perhaps the various adaptations and even graphic rendering of these Chinese classical novels have caught the interest of Japanese readers by offering such “transformations.” These considerations may go some way to discovering the reason behind their phenomenal success in contrast to Red Chamber’s relatively unknown status among average Japanese readers, which seems beyond Chinese readers’ understanding. As Chan Tak-hung Leo astutely writes: In fact, the success of a translation with a particular community of general readers is contingent upon so many factors – personal, cultural and even accidental – that it is not always possible to posit a direct, causal link between the reception of the original by its readers and the reception of its translation by target readers (Chan 2010, 92)

Chan is no doubt right that it is almost impossible to trace the exact reasons for the success of a translated work. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to attempt to discover

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why Red Chamber, the apex of Chinese literature, is less known in Japan than other Chinese classical novels. Insights from such work could inspire further translators to strive to share their love of Red Chamber with a wider readership in Japan. Besides, there are ample grounds for further work in this area that may help in discerning important cultural and aesthetic differences between China and Japan.

References Ashibe, Taku. 2007. K¯or¯omu no satsujin [Murder in the Dream of the Red Chamber]. Tokyo: Bungeishunj¯u. Berman, Antoine. 1992. The Experience of the Foreign: Culture and Translation in Romantic Germany. Albany: State University of New York Press. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1986. The Forms of Capital. In Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, ed. J.G. Richardson. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ———. 1993. The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press. Chan, Tak-hung Leo. 2010. Readers, Reading and Reception of Translated Fiction in China: Novel Encounters. London and New York: Routledge. Chen, Zheng, ed. 2005. Huang Zunxian wenji [A Collected Work of Huang Zunxian]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. Damrosch, David. 2003. What Is World Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Denecke, Wiebke. 2014. Worlds Without Translation: Premodern East Asia and the Power of Character Scripts. In A Companion to Translation Studies, ed. Sandra Bermann and Catherine Porter, 204–216. Oxford: Wiley. Ding, Ruiying. 2005. Hongloumeng Yiteng Shuping riyiben yanjiu [A Study of It¯o S¯ohei’s Translation of Dream of the Red Chamber]. Master thesis. Mingchuan University, Taibei. Duanmu, Hongliang. 1998. Qiantan Cao Xueqin de fengmao [A Discussion on Cao Xueqin]. In Mingjia jiedu Hongloumeng [Renown Scholars’ Reading of Red Chamber], ed. Zhang Baokun, 858–862. Jinan: Shandong renmin chubanshe. Feng, Qiyong. 1998. Guanyu Cao Xueqin de yanjiu [A Study on Cao Xueqin]. In Mingjia jiedu Hongloumeng [Renown Scholars’ Reading of Red Chamber], ed. Zhang Baokun, 833–848. Jinan: Shandong renmin chubanshe. Gouanvic, Jean-Marc. 2005. A Bourdieusian Theory of Translation, or the Coincidence of Practical Instances: Field, “Habitus”, Capital and “Illusio.” The Translator: Bourdieu and the Sociology of Translation and Interpreting 11: 147–166. Hiraoka, Ry¯uj¯o, and Rohan K¯oda, trans. 1920–1922. K¯or¯omu [Dream of the Red Chamber]. Tokyo: Kokumin bunko kank¯okai. Hu, Wenbin. 1986. Hongbian cuoyu [Trivial Talks About the Dream of the Red Chamber]. Shenyang: Liaoning renmin chubanshe. ———. 1993. Hong lou meng zai guowai [The Dream of the Red Chamber in Overseas]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. Hu, Shi. 1998. Hongloumeng kaozheng [A Historical Investigation on Red Chamber]. In Mingjia jiedu Hongloumeng [Renown Scholars’ Reading of Red Chamber], ed. Zhang Baokun, 3–42. Jinan: Shandong renmin chubanshe. Iikura, Sh.¯ohei, and Toshiyasu Ogawa. 2019. Waseda daigaku Aizu Ya’ichi kinen hakubutsukan shoz¯o ‘Matsueda Shigeo ky¯uz¯o shokan’ kaidai [A Bibliography of Matsueda Shigeo’s Collection in Aizu Museum at Waseda University]. Bunka Ronsh¯u 55: 223–231. Iizuka, Akira. 1980. Trans. K¯or¯omu [Dream of the Red Chamber]. Tokyo: Sh¯ueisha. Ikeda, Riyoko. 2012. T¯oson to K¯or¯omu [T¯oson and the Dream of the Red Chamber]. Ry¯uts¯u keizai daigaku ronshu 47 (1): 41–56.

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Inami, Ritsuko. 2007. Comments. In K¯or¯omu no satsujin [Murder in the Dream of the Red Chamber], , 447–452. Tokyo: Bungeishunj¯u. Inami, Ry¯oichi. 2014. Trans. K¯or¯omu [Dream of the Red Chamber]. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. ———. 2015. Raku-y¯u [Cheerful Friends]. Kyoto University Newsletter 28: 1–13. It¯o, S¯ohei.1960. Trans. K¯or¯omu [Dream of the Red Chamber]. Tokyo: Heibonsha. ———. 1988. Trans. Kecheng. “Hongliumen zai riben [Dream of the Red Chamber in Japan].” Liaoning daxue xuebao, 2: 79-82. ———. 1997. Ershiyi shiji hongxue zhanwang: Yige waiguo xuezhe lunshu Hongloumeng de fanyi wenti [A Prospect of Redology: A Discussion on the Translation of Dream of Red Chamber by a Foreign Scholar]. Hongloumeng Xuekan S1: 16–29. ———. 2008. Nihon ni okeru K¯or¯omu no ry¯uk¯o: bakumatsu kara gendai made no shoshiteki soby¯o [Red Chamber in Japan: A Bibliographical Sketch from Late Edo Period to Modern Time]. In It¯o S¯ohei chosaku sh¯u, 174–222. Tokyo: Ky¯uko shoin. Kornicki, Peter. 2018. Languages, Scripts, and Chinese Texts in East Asia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lefevere, Andre. 1982. Mother Courage’s Cucumbers: Text, System and Refraction in a Theory of Literature. Modern Language Studies 12 (4): 3–20. Liu, Shicong, ed. 2004. Hongloumeng yiping: Hongloumeng fanyi yanjiu lunwenji [Studies on the Translations of Dream of the Red Chamber: A Collection of Studies on the Translation of Red Chamber]. Tianjin: Nankai daxue chubanshe. Lin, Rusi. 2016. Introduction to Moment in Peking. In Moment in Peking, ed. Lin Yutang. Changsha: Hunan wenyi chubanshe. Lurie, David. 2011. Realms of Literacy: Early Japan and the History of Writing. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Asia Center. Matsueda, Shigeo. 1940. Trans. K¯or¯omu [Dream of the Red Chamber]. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. ———. 1972. Trans. K¯or¯omu [Dream of the Red Chamber]. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. ———. 1998. Iwanami bunko to K¯or¯omu to watashi to [Iwanami, Red Chamber and Myself]. In Matsueda bunsh [Collective Works of Matsueda], vol. 1, 230–237. Tokyo: Ky¯uko shoin. Morinaka Miki. 2010. Riben quanyi Hongloumeng de licheng jianshu: Pinggang Longcheng guoyi Hongloumeng [A Brief History on the Completed Japanese Translation of Dream of the Red Chamber: Hiraoka Ry¯uj¯o’s Translation of Red Chamber]. Huaxi yuwen xuekan 3: 108–115. Ni, Jindan. 2020. The Tale of Genji and Its Chinese Precursors: Beyond the Boundaries of Nation, Class and Gender. Lanham: Lexington Books. Pym, Anthony. 1998. Method in Translation History. Manchester: St. Jerome. Qi, Lintao. 2018. Jin Ping Mei English Translations: Texts, Paratexts and Contexts. London and New York: Taylor and Francis. Sat¯o, Ry¯oichi. 1983. Trans. K¯or¯omu [Dream of the red chamber]. Tokyo: Rokk¯o shuppansha Simeoni, Daniel. 1998. The Pivotal Status of the Translator’s Habitus. Target 10: 1–39. Song, Dan. 2015. Hongloumeng riyiben yanjiu [A Study on the Japanese Translations of Dream of the Red Chamber]. PhD, dissertation, Nankai University. Song, Dan. 2019. Hongloumeng zai riben de fanyi yuyingxiang yanjiu. Foreign Language Teaching and Research 51 (1): 121–132. ———. 2018. Jingbo Lingyi Hongloumeng riyi celue chuyi [Inami Ry¯oichi’s Translating Techniques on Dream of the Red Chamber]. Hongloumeng xuekan 4: 240–264. Steininger, Brian. 2017. Chinese Literary Form in Heian Japan: Poetics and Practice. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Asia Center. Sun, Yuming. 2006. Riben hongxue shigao [A Study on the Redology in Japan]. Beijing: Beijing tushuguan chubanshe. Venuti, Lawrence. 2003. Retranslation: The Creation of Value. Bucknell Review 47: 25–38. ———. 2013. Translation Changes Everything: Theory and Practice. London and New York: Routledge. Yu, Anthony. 1997. Rereading the Stone: Desire and the Making of Fiction in Dream of the Red Chamber. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

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Zhang, Guo. 2015. Nankai daxue boshi faxian Lin Yutang yingyi Hongloumeng yuangao [a PhD candidate in Nankai University found an English translation of The Dream of the Read Chamber by Lin Yutang]. Souhu wang. https://www.sohu.com/a/24285477_115419.

Jindan Ni is coordinator and lecturer of Chinese Studies at RMIT University, and she has worked in the areas of Japanese classical literature, comparative literature and Chinese literature. Her latest monograph The Tale of Genji and its Chinese Precursors: Beyond the Boundaries of Nation, Class and Gender (2020) studies transnational literary practices in the premodern Sinographic sphere. She is also an active translator who has translated non-fictional books from Japanese and English to Chinese. Lintao Qi is Lecturer in the Masters of Interpreting and Translation Studies at Monash University, Australia. His research interests include literary translation theory and practice, translation and cultural diplomacy, and sexuality and censorship in translation. He is the author of Jin Ping Mei English Translations: Texts, Paratexts, and Contexts (Routledge, 2018) and co-editor (with Leah Gerber) of A Century of Chinese Literature in Translation: English Publication and Reception (Routledge, 2020). Lintao has published widely in internationally recognised journals such as Target, Translation and Interpreting Studies, and Perspectives. He is a NAATI-certified translator and Co-editor of New Voices in Translation Studies.

How and Why Does David Hawkes Use Rhymes in Translating Poems in Hong Lou Meng Quangong Feng

Abstract Hong Lou Meng is usually considered the pinnacle of the classical Chinese novel, and numerous poems contained in it contribute significantly to its artistic achievements. Most of the poems in David Hawkes’ translation of this novel are in rhyme, although with different patterns. Moreover, the overall meaning of the original poems is reproduced despite many slight semantic alterations for the sake of rhyme. Thus, his translated poems are artistically appealing by reproducing or even reinforcing the sonorous beauty of the original poems which are an integral part of the novel. This chapter mainly summarizes three rhyming methods used by Hawkes, namely, seeking rhymes according to original meaning as the dominant method, creating new meaning for the sake of rhyme and adjusting the plot of the novel to create new rhymes as two supplementary methods, and briefly explains why rhymes are still used in his translation against the prevailing trend of unrhymed poetry writing and translation. Though different methods have different degrees of salience in a specific translated poem, the two supplementary rhyming methods best show Hawkes’ creativity and distinguish him as a great translator. Keywords Hong Lou Meng · Poem · Rhyme · David Hawkes · Translation

1 Introduction When Louise von Flotow, a renowned feminist translation theorist at the University of Ottawa, visited Nankai University about ten years ago, I made a presentation about some artistic features of David Hawkes’ translation of Hong Lou Meng 《红楼梦 ( 》), also translated into The Story of the Stone, The Dream of the Red Chamber, A Dream of Red Mansions and so on, hereafter HLM for short), and when I expressed my admiration for Hawkes’ skillful use of rhyme in translating poems in this novel,1 she shook her head and said, “No, no, it’s old-fashioned”, a kind of astonishment 1 In fact, David Hawkes has only translated the former 80 chapters of HLM, with the remaining 40 chapters translated by John Minford, and this article only discusses Hawkes’ translation.

Q. Feng (B) Zhejiang University, Zhejiang 310058, China © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Qi and S. Tobias (eds.), Encountering China’s Past, New Frontiers in Translation Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0648-0_4

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written all over her face. It is true that rhymed poems have been considered out of date since the twentieth century under the influence of great poets and translators like Ezra Pound and Arthur Waley who abandoned the use of rhyme in poetry writing or translation. Those translators of classical Chinese poetry who do not use rhymes think rhymes inhibit the translator’s ability to express the meaning of the original poem truthfully and accurately. They represent a prevailing trend of translating classical Chinese poetry since the twentieth century, a trend that serves a powerful reaction against the rhymed school represented by Herbert A. Giles. Amidst such a background, Hawkes’ translation of Du Fu’s poems in his A Little Primer of Du Fu and Chuci in his The Songs of the South are also unrhymed. Generally speaking, Hawkes belongs to the unrhymed school in translating classical Chinese poetry. But why did Hawkes still choose to use rhymes, regular or irregular, as best as he could in translating poems in HLM against the prevailing trend in the 1970s? How did he manage to do so? Are there any typical rhyming methods used by him? And what about the effect? What can we learn from him about translating poems contained in classical Chinese fiction? This article aims to address these questions in detail, drawing attention to Hawkes’ ingenuity in translating poems in HLM, which might shed some light for future translators. With regard to HLM translation studies, there are numerous publications in the form of monographs, academic papers, theses, or anthologies, especially in China. But regrettably, few are exclusively about rhyme used by Hawkes or other translators although many are about the translation of poems in HLM. For example, three chapters in Feng Qinghua’s (2006) On the Translation of Hong Lou Meng are about the translation of poems in this novel, but little was said about rhyme. Wang Hongyin’s (2001) A Comparative Study on the English Translations of Poetry in Hong Lou Meng contains some comments on Hawkes’ use of rhymes, but not in a systemic way. Cai Yijiang (2010, 3) holds that “The poetry in Hong Lou Meng is an integral part of the plot of the novel and the portrayal of characters, which distinguish this novel from others”.2 This factor is not to be ignored in the evaluation of poetry translation in HLM. In other words, we should take a holistic view to judge the merits and demerits of poetry translation in HLM, including how a translator uses rhymes in order to reproduce the musical beauty of the original poem. This chapter extends my previous research (in Chinese) about the rhyming methods used by Hawkes in translating poems in HLM (Feng Quangong 2015). The relationship between rhyme and meaning is often discussed in poetry translation, and the comment “doing harm to meaning because of rhyme” (因韵害 意) is often mentioned in translation criticism of classical Chinese poetry. Such a phenomenon does exist and occurs quite often in the translation of classical Chinese poetry. That’s why many translators oppose the use of rhyme in poetry translation, even when the original poem is rhymed. As mentioned before, Hawkes’ translation of poetry in HLM is in rhyme if the original poem is rhymed. Even if the original 2

The original Chinese is (translated into English by the author of this article and hereafter): 《红楼梦》中的诗词曲赋是小说故事情节和人物描写的有机组成部分。这也是 它有别于其他小说的一个特点.

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passage is not strictly a rhymed poem or not a poem at all, or is closer to prose in style, sometimes he converts it into a rhymed poem. Zhao Changjiang and Li Zhengshuan (2011) touch upon this issue (prose being converted into poem) exemplified by Hawkes’ translation of HLM. It can thus be seen that Hawkes has a special emphasis on rhyme in translating poems in HLM. I will now discuss his rhyming methods by analyzing specific examples. Focusing on the relationship between rhyme and meaning (or plot of the novel), three major rhyming methods adopted by Hawkes are summarized as follows: (1) seeking rhymes according to original meaning; (2) creating new meaning for the sake of rhyme; (3) adjusting the plot of the novel to create new rhymes. This doesn’t mean that there are no instances of “doing harm to meaning because of rhyme” in his translation, but the gains always far outweigh the losses and the overall effect is desirable. For this reason, the term “doing harm to meaning because of rhyme” is not used here even though there are many cases of adding or deleting information, inevitably resulting in some distortions in meaning. Since meaning itself is a very complex issue and has different classifications, it is used almost interchangeably with the referential meaning of a word or phrase or sentence in this paper if not otherwise stated.

2 Seeking Rhymes According to Original Meaning This method refers to the fact that the translator tries his or her best to seek suitable rhymes according to the meaning of the original passage without any apparent or significant deviation. It is adopted by most translators in translating original poems into rhymed ones. Sometimes, if the translation retains the deep or cultural meaning of the original poem though one or more images are omitted, it can also be classified into this category. For instance, in the song The Mistake Marriage 《终身误》), ( the lines “纵然是齐眉举案, 到底意难平” (Cao Xueqin and Gao E 1964, 613 ) are translated by Hawkes into “Even a wife so courteous and so kind / No comfort brings to my afflicted mind”4 (Hawkes, vol. 1, 1973, 140). Here “齐眉举案” (literally means to hold a plate at the level of one’s brows) is a typical allusion in Chinese culture which contains two images (眉、案), and Hawkes’ translation “a wife so courteous and so kind” conveys the cultural or intended meaning of the original (to show respect) although the two images are omitted. Thus, this translation also belongs to the category of “seeking rhymes according to original meaning”. Since poems in HLM are an integral part of the novel and closely related to its plot, their translation should be evaluated beyond the micro-level context of the poems themselves. This point is quite persuasively illustrated by Hawkes’ translation of《 好了歌》 sung by a Taoist in Chapter 1. The original poem goes like this: 3

In the following part of this article, if the original is cited in this version, only the page number is given in brackets and other citation information is not provided hereafter. 4 In the following part of this article, if the Hawkes’ translation is cited, only the volume and page numbers are given in brackets and other citation information is not provided hereafter.

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世人都晓神仙好, 惟有功名忘不了!古今将相在何方: 荒冢一堆草没了。 世人都晓神仙好, 只有金银忘不了!终朝只恨聚无多, 及到多时眼闭了。 世人都晓神仙好, 只有姣妻忘不了!君生日日说恩情, 君死又随人去了。 世人都晓神仙好, 只有儿孙忘不了!痴心父母古来多, 孝顺子孙谁见了? (11–12). This poem is entitled 《 “ 好了歌》” precisely because the first line of each stanza ends with “好” and the second and final lines of each stanza end with “了”. In order to imitate the rhymes of the original, Hawkes ingeniously translates its name into “WonDone Song” because the meanings of “won” and “done” are roughly equivalent to “ 好” and “了” respectively. The whole translation goes like this: ‘Men all know that salvation should be won, But with ambition won’t have done, have done. Where are the famous ones of days gone by? In grassy graves they lie now, every one. Men all know that salvation should be won, But with their riches won’t have done, have done. Each day they grumble they’ve not made enough. When they’ve enough, it’s goodnight everyone! Men all know that salvation should be won, But with their loving wives they won’t have done. The darlings every day protest their love: But once you’re dead, they’re off with another one. Men all know that salvation should be won, But with their children won’t have done, have done. Yet though of patents fond there is no lack, Of grateful children saw I ne’er a one.’ (vol. 1, 63–64) The rhymes of the first, second, and final line of each stanza in the translation are respectively “won”, “done”, “one (everyone)”, very similar to those in the original song. More importantly, when the Taoist had finished chanting the song, Zhen Shiyin approached him and asked: “你满口说些什么?——只听见些‘好了’‘好了’。”那道人笑道: “你若果听 见‘好了’二字, 还算你明白: 可知世上 万般, 好便是了, 了便是好; 若不了, 便不好; 若要好, 须是了。——我这歌 儿便叫 《好了歌》.” (12) And Hawkes’ translation of this dialogue goes like this: ‘What is all this you are saying? All I can make out is a lot of “won” and “done”.’ ‘If you can make out “won” and “done”,’ replied the Taoist with a smile, ‘you may be said to have understood; for in all the affairs of this world what is won is done, and what is done

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is won; for whoever has not yet done has not yet won, and in order to have won, one must first have done. I shall call my song the “Won-Done Song”.’ (vol. 1, 64)

The main reason why poems in HLM are inseparable from the novel is that they are embedded in the plot and become part of it. Here we can see Hawkes’ ingenuity in using “won” and “done” to link the poem with the plot and make them as coherent and fluent as the original. If we look at others’ translations of this poem, we can find the song itself is not as well connected with the plot as Hawkes’, be it Yang Hsien-Yi and Gladys Yang’s version or Bramwell S. Bonsall’s or H. Bencraft Joly’s. Wang Chi-Chen (1958, 13–14) translates the name of this song into “Forget and Be Free”, and the first and second lines of each stanza in his translated poem end respectively with “free” and “forget”. The poem itself is also well connected with the plot, or rather, the dialogue between Zhen Shiyin and the Taoist mentioned above. Wang’s version is also a good translation except that the meanings of “好” and “了” are not reproduced accurately. From this example, we can see that poems in HLM don’t stand alone, and the evaluation or criticism of their translations should take other factors into consideration, such as their connection with the plot, and with relevant characters, wherein lies part of the artistic appeal of the novel. Zhen Shiyin has a commentary on the Taoist’s “Won-Done Song”, which can also be considered as a poem although each line varies in length. The original poem has its own rhyme, or rather, each line ends with the same rhyme [ang], such as “ 床”, “场”, “上”, “霜”, “鸯”, “谤”, “丧”, “梁”, “扛”, “长”, “乡”, “裳”. Many phrases in each line also contain the same rhyme, such as “堂”, “杨”, “梁”, “香”, “箱”, “方”, which also contributes to the musicality of the poem. Hawkes’ translation of Zhen Shiyin’s commentary is in rhyme, too, but with a different pattern. His rhyme pattern is two lines with the same rhyme, namely, AABBCCDDEEFFGGHHIIJJKKLLMMNN, which is also a result of “seeking rhymes according to original meaning”. For example, the first two lines of the original poem are “陋室空床, 当 年笏满床; 衰草枯杨, 曾为歌舞场” (12) and Hawkes’ corresponding translation is “Mean hovels and abandoned halls / Where courtiers once paid daily calls; / Bleak haunts where weeds and willows scarcely thrive / Were once with mirth and revelry alive” (vol. 1, 64). Though the phrases “abandoned halls”, “paid daily calls”, “weeds and willows scarcely thrive”, “with mirth and revelry alive” are not exactly equivalent to the referential meanings of the original, their intended meanings remain unchanged. In Chapter 5, there are many poems and songs which are of great importance because they serve to indicate or reveal the fate of main characters and of the whole Jia family. Since they are extremely important in the novel, Hawkes’ translations are also quite accurate, reproducing the intended meaning of the originals. Moreover, all of his translations of these poems and songs are in rhyme, although with different patterns. For instance, his translation of the poem depicting Qingwen (Skybright) is in the rhyme pattern of AABBCCC, others in AABB or ABCB. His translations of the famous twelve songs are also in rhyme, such as The Mistake Marriage 《终身误 ( 》) in the rhyme pattern of ABABCCDDEFEE, From Dear Ones Parted 《分骨肉 ( in 》) in the rhyme pattern of AABBCCDDEFE, The Vanity of Spring 《虚花悟》) (

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the pattern of AABBCCDDCCCEEFFGG, and Splendour Come Late 《晚韶华》) ( in the pattern of AABBCCDEDEFGFGHIHIJJ. The epilogue of the twelve songs The Birds into the Wood Have Flown《飞鸟各投林》) ( is in rhyme but not regularly, and Hawkes’ translation is in the rhyme pattern of ABABCCDDEEFFGG, just like an English Sonnet which undoubtedly gives the target reader a sense of familiarity. Many couplets and other expressions are not rhymed in the original, but Hawkes also manages to convert them into rhyme, which gives some additional musicality to the novel. For instance, the couplet “偶因一回顾, 便为人上人” (15) which depicts the fate of Jiaoxing (Lucky) is translated into “Sometimes by Chance, / A look or a glance / May one’s fortune advance” (vol. 1, 68); the idiom “月满则亏, 水满则溢” (145) said by Qin Keqing when she was dying is rendered into “The full moon smaller grows, / Full water overflows” (vol. 1, 255); the narrative expression “苍苔露冷, 花 径风寒” (312) is rendered into “Chill was the green moss pearled with dew / And chill was the wind in the avenue” (vol. 1, 525); the alluded line appearing in Baoyu’s mind “绿叶成阴子满枝” (746) is translated into “And in among the green leaves now / The young fruit hangs from every bough” (vol. 3, 123); and Baoyu’s riddle “ 南面而坐, 北面而朝, 象忧亦忧, 象喜亦喜” (260) is rendered into “Southward you stare, / He’ll northward glare. / Grieve, and he’s sad. / Laugh, and he’s glad” (vol. 1, 449). The last example is worth mentioning because Hawkes alters the meaning of the first two phrases by turning “坐” and “朝” into “stare” and “glare”. However, this does little harm to the function of the riddle (the answer is a mirror). In other words, the original riddle still works in translation and in rhyme at that, which is the result of the translator’s creativity. Since there is semantic deviation in the last example, Hawkes’ translation can also be classified into the category of “creating new meaning for the sake of rhyme”, which will be discussed in the next section.

3 Creating New Meaning for the Sake of Rhyme This method refers to the fact that the translator adds some new meaning to the original poem in order to rhyme, which involves some apparent semantic deviations; in other words, the meaning of the original line or the whole poem is usually changed substantially. Sometimes, the esthetic effect or pragmatic function of poems in fiction outweighs their referential meaning, especially those without any connection with the theme of the novel or the fate of characters in the novel. In such circumstances, creating new meaning for the sake of rhyme is allowed and even encouraged because it is far different from the negative phenomenon of “doing harm to meaning because of rhyme”. For example, in Chapter 40 Grannie Liu said something like a joke before dinner to amuse others, which goes like this—“老刘, 老刘, 食量大如牛: 吃个老 母猪, 不抬头!” (489). This is something like a vulgar poem or a doggerel which conforms neatly to the identity and speech characteristics of Grannie Liu, an old, experienced woman in the countryside. Hawkes’ translation goes like this—“My name it is Liu, / I’m a trencherman true; / I can eat a whole sow / With her little pigs too” (vol. 2, 288). Here the original “不抬头” (without raising one’s head) is omitted

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and “With her little pigs too” is added by the translator in order to rhyme with “true” in the second line. The translated poem could stand on its own and its pragmatic function of amusing others is even more effective than the original because of the added information. In Chapter 28, some interesting rules of composing poems are proposed by the protagonist Jia Baoyu. The original rules are like this—“如今要说 ‘悲’ ‘愁’ ‘喜’ ‘乐’四个字, 却要说出 ‘女儿’来, 还要注明这四个字的缘故” (334) and Hawkes’ corresponding translation is “We’re going to take four words—let’s say ‘upset’, ‘glum’, ‘blest’ and ‘content’. You have to begin by saying ‘The girl is—’, and then you say one of the four words. That’s your first line. The next line has to rhyme with the first line and it has to give the reason why the girl is whatever it says—‘upset’ or ‘glum’ or ‘blest’ or “content’”.(vol. 2, 54) Since nearly all classical Chinese poems have regular rhymes, Baoyu’s suggested poem composition is no exception although he doesn’t mention it in the novel. That’s why Hawkes adds the information “The next line has to rhyme with the first line”. It poses a big challenge for the translator because five characters composed this kind of poem in the novel and all their poems have to follow the same rhyme pattern mentioned above. This inevitably involves some changes to the meaning of the original poems if a translator wants to succeed in doing what is required by Baoyu. Yuner, a singsong girl invited to Feng Ziying’s home where they composed the poems, made her poem as follows—“女儿悲, 将来终身倚靠谁?女儿愁, 妈妈打 骂何时休?女儿喜, 情郎不舍还家里; 女儿乐, 住了箫管弄弦索。” (335) Hawkes’ translation is “The girl’s upset: / Not knowing how the future’s to be met—/ The girl looks glum: / Nothing but blows and hard words from her Mum—/ The girl feels blest: / Her young man’s rich and beautifully dressed. /The girl’s content: / She’s been performing in a big event” (vol. 2, 56–57). Here we first look at the fifth and sixth lines. The original lines “女儿喜, 情郎不舍还家里” literally means the girl feels happy because her lover is unwilling to go home. Yuner is a singsong girl living and entertaining her guests in a special establishment similar to a brothel, and she is naturally happy if her lover or guest is unwilling to part with her. Hawkes translates the above two lines into “The girl feels blest: / Her young man’s rich and beautifully dressed”. When it comes to the reason why “the girl feels blest”, it can be clearly seen that the meaning of the original and that of the translation are far different. Hawkes translates the original line this way precisely because he wants to rhyme with the former line (blest, dressed). In spite of the semantic deviation, the translation itself sounds logical and does no harm to the overall poetic effect of the original poem. In addition, the last two lines generalizes the original meaning by deleting two images (“萧管” and “弦索”), which somewhat weakens the esthetic effect of the original line. However, it is offset by the overall rhyming effect, which is more important in the rhyming scheme with all the five poems in the rhyme pattern of AABBCCDD. There are many other examples of creating new meaning for the sake of rhyme in the five poems, such as “女儿悲, 儿夫染病在垂危” (335) (the second line literally means her husband is ill and in great danger) being translated into “The girl’s upset: / Her husband’s ill and she’s in debt” (vol. 2, 56); “女儿愁, 无钱去打桂花油” (336– 337) (the second line literally means she has no money to buy osmanthus oil) being

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translated into “The girl looks glum: / So short of cash she can’t afford a crumb” (vol. 2, 59); and “女儿愁, 绣房钻出个大马猴” (336) (the second line literally means a big baboon pops into her chamber) being translated into “The girl looks glum—His dad’s a baboon with a big red bum” (58). When the meaning and rhyme contradict, or a suitable rhyme could not be found according to the original meaning, Hawkes usually conforms to the set rhyme by deleting some information in the original and adding something new to it. This, to a certain extent, is testament to his creativity in translating poems in HLM, thus enabling his translations to be an integral part of the novel without losing their poetic effect. Sometimes the added message could strengthen the theme or artistic appeal of the poem, and what is added is also largely for rhyme’s sake. For example, there are two poems that depict Baoyu in Chapter 3, and in the second of them, two lines go like this: “富贵不知乐业, 贫穷难耐凄凉” (36). Hawkes translates them into “Prosperous, he could not play his part with grace, / Nor, poor, bear hardship with a smiling face” (vol. 1, 102). Here the “with a smiling face” is purely added by the translator in order to rhyme with “grace” in the former line, which sounds very natural and appealing on its own. In Chapter 18, a couplet in a poem composed by Xichun, namely “山 水横拖千里外, 楼台高起五云中” (209), is translated into “The garden’s landscape far and wide outspreads; / High in the clouds its buildings raise their heads” (vol. 1, 366). Here Hawkes adds “raise their heads” in order to rhyme with “outspreads”, giving the poem a touch of animism and thus somewhat enhancing its artistic appeal. In Chapter 5, the first couplet of a poem sung by the fairy Disenchantment goes like this “春梦随云散, 飞花逐水流” (54) and Hawkes translates it into “Spring’s dream-time will like drifting clouds disperse, / Its flowers snatched by a flood none can reverse” (vol. 1, 128). Cai Yijiang (2010, 38) maintains that “By the song of the fairy, the author foretells the fates of many girls in the Prospect Garden which are like clouds dispersed in the wind or flowers flown in the stream”.5 Here “none can reverse” added by the translator in order to rhyme with “disperse” in the former line intensifies the extreme harshness and helplessness endured by young girls in feudal society in China and in this novel in particular, which often results in their premature death, like “flowers snatched by a flood”. In Chapter 22, a poem riddle composed by Tanchun goes like this—“阶下儿童仰面时, 清明妆点最堪宜。游丝一断浑无力, 莫向东风怨别离” (260), which foretells or symbolizes Tanchun’s own fate in the novel. Hawkes renders this poem into “In spring the little boys look up and stare / To see me ride so proudly in the air. / My strength all goes when once the bond is parted, / And on the wind I drift off broken-hearted” (vol. 1, 448). The rhyme pattern of the translated poem is AABB, and in order to rhyme, the meanings of the second and fourth lines are quite different from those of the original lines. But it is very suitable in that the translation portrays Tanchun’s fate (later married far away) even more vividly than the original by adding such words as “proudly” and “broken-hearted”. Hawkes tries his best to make the translated poems or lines rhymed even if the original lines have no end rhymes themselves. For instance, in Chapter 28, when The original Chinese is: 作者是借仙子的唱词, 对将来大观园众儿女风流云散、花飞水逝的 命运先作预言.

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Baoyu heard Daiyu’s bitter song of flower-burying, he became very sad and began to cry. The author uses a couplet without end rhymes to depict the scene which goes like this “花影不离身左右, 鸟声只在耳东西” (p. 326). Hawkes’ translation is “Flowers in my eyes and bird-song in my ears / Augment my loss and mock my bitter tears” (vol. 2, 42), which is widely different from the meaning of the original lines largely because the last line of the translation is purely added by the translator. But the added meaning is in perfect harmony with the scene and plot of the novel, and thus it seems his translation is even more poetically appealing than the original. In fact, not all of Hawkes’ additions for the sake of rhyme are appropriate according to specific contexts. For instance, in Chapter 22, Baochai cited two poems by two famous monks in ancient China, Shenxiu and Huineng. Shenxiu’s poem goes like this “身是菩提树, 心如明镜台: 时时勤拂拭, 莫使有尘埃” (257) and Hawkes renders it into “Our body like the Bo-tree is, / Our mind’s a mirror bright. / Then keep it clean and free from dust, / So it reflects the light!” (vol. 1, 442). The last line added by the translator in order to rhyme with “bright” in the second line is not very suitable in that it cannot be “deconstructed” by Huineng’s poem which goes like this “菩提 本非树, 明镜亦非台: 本来无一物, 何处染尘埃?” (257) and is rendered into “No real Bo-tree the body is, / The mind no mirror bright. / Since of the pair none’s really there, / On what could dust alight?” (vol. 1, 443). At least, the last line of Shenxiu’s poem is left unattended or not negated by the translated version of Huineng’s poem, which somewhat deviates from the original.

4 Adjusting the Plot of the Novel to Create New Rhymes If the former two rhyming methods are adopted by translators of poetry in general, this method is Hawkes’ unique invention, which refers to the fact that the plot of the novel is somewhat changed in order to make suitable rhymes. Consequently, the rhymes adopted become an integral part of the novel, making the narration of the story flow as naturally as the original. This method, to a large extent, differentiates the translation of poems in fiction, especially in HLM which incorporates poems in its very plot, from the translation of poems in general. The most typical example is found in the linked poem by Daiyu and Xiang-yun (including what is followed by Miaoyu) in Chapter 76. As to which rhyme to use in their linked verse, the original goes like this— 黛玉笑道: “……咱们两个都爱五言, 就还是五言排律罢。”湘云道“什么 韵?”黛玉笑道: “咱们数这个栏杆上的直棍, 这头到那头为止, 他是第几根, 就是第几韵”湘云笑道: “这倒别致!” 于是 二人起身, 便从头数至尽头, 止得十三根。湘云 道: “偏又是‘十三元’了!” (993) Hawkes’ translation of the above dialogues is as follows:

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In the original, there are thirteen posts along the railing, and thirteen itself is not the rhyme required. Instead, it refers to the thirteenth rhyme represented by “元” (yuan) in classical Chinese poetry composition. Hawkes renders “他是第几根, 就 是第几韵” into “Whatever the number is shall be our rhyme”. Thus, the number itself becomes the rhyme in his translation. But why does he change the original number “thirteen” into “eight”? The reason is that he simply wants to make the whole poem rhyme with “eight”, and he achieves a wonderful success. There are altogether 70 lines in the original (including Miaoyu’s extension) and 35 rhymes, all rhyming with “元” (yuan), such as “繁” (fan), “轩” (xuan) and so on and so forth. Likewise, the translated poem contains also 35 rhymes, all rhyming with “eight”. They are as follows from the beginning to the end: emulate, pulsate, celebrate, scintillate, eight, gestate, inebriate, promulgate, rotate, illuminate, adjudicate, gate, terminate, desolate, pernoctate, congregate, inflate, emigrate, freight, inanimate, annihilate, state, coagulate, abate, mate, serrate, perambulate, pullulate, accumulate, ululate, investigate, anticipate, irritate, communicate, and debate. Thus, the whole poem is at one with the plot, and this is indeed a marvelous achievement far beyond the ability of an ordinary translator. Another similar example is found in Chapter 37 where there are six poems in praise of white crab blossoms written respectively by Tanchun, Baochai, Baoyu, Daiyu and Xiang-yun (two) with the same rhyme. As to which rhyme to use the original goes like this— 迎春掩了诗, 又向一个小丫头道: “你随口说个字来。”那丫头正倚门站着, 便说了个“门”字, 迎春笑道: “就是‘门’ 字韵, ‘十三元’了。起头一个韵定要‘门’字。”说着又要了韵牌匣子过来, 抽 出“十三元”一屉, 又命那丫头随手拿四块。 那丫头便拿了“盆”“魂”“痕”“昏”四块来. (448) Hawkes’ translates this passage into: She closed the book again and turned to a little maid who was leaning in the doorway looking on. / ‘Give us a word,’ she said. ‘Any word.’ / ‘Door,’ said the girl. / ‘That means the first line must end with “door”,’ said Ying-chun. She turned again to the girl: ‘Another one.’ / ‘Pot,’ said the girl. / ‘Right, “pot”,’ said Ying-chun, and going over to a little nest of drawers in which rhyme-cards were kept, she pulled out one of them and asked the maid to select two cards from it at random. These turned out to be the cards for ‘not’ and ‘spot’. / ‘Now,’ she said to the girl, ‘pick any card out of any drawer. Just one.’ / The girl pulled out another drawer and picked out the card for ‘day’. / ‘All right,’ said Ying-chun. ‘That means that your first line must end in “door”, your second in “pot”, your fourth in “not”, your sixth in “spot”, and the rhyming couplet in the seventh and eighth lines must end in “day”.’ (vol. 2, 221)

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If we make a close comparison between the original and the translation, we will find Hawkes makes some adjustments to the plot in order to create new rhymes. For example, the girl just said one word “门” in the original and drew four rhyme cards from a drawer which Yingchun pulled out, but in the translation Hawkes makes the girl say two words consecutively, namely “door” and “pot”, and select the rhyme cards twice from different drawers, including two rhymes (“not” and “spot”) from the drawer which Yingchun had pulled out. In fact, the rhymes of “door” and “pot” have the same meaning with the original rhymes “门” and “盆”, while the rhymes of “not” and “day” are totally created by Hawkes, with the rhyme of “spot” lying in between because its meaning is partially equivalent to “痕”. In addition, the last sentence said by Yingchun in the above-cited English passage is also added by Hawkes in order to make clear the rhyme pattern in his translation. For instance, the poem composed by Baochai “珍重芳姿昼掩门, 自携手瓮灌苔 盆。胭脂洗出秋阶影, 冰雪招来露砌魂。淡极始知花更艳, 愁多焉得玉无痕。欲偿 白帝宜清洁, 不语婷婷日又昏.” (p. 449) is translated into “Guard the sweet scent behind closed courtyard door, / And with prompt waterings dew the mossy pot! / The carmine hue their summer sisters wore / These snowy autumn blossoms envy not—/ For beauty in plain whiteness best appears / And only in white jade is found no spot. / Chaste, lovely flowers! Silent, they seem to pray / To autumn’s White God at the close of day” (vol. 2, 223). In order to stick to the rhyme pattern, Hawkes sometimes also adds or creates some new meanings, for example “自是霜娥偏爱冷, 非关倩女 欲离魂” (455) composed by Xiang-yun is rendered into “From which a wondrous white Frost Maiden grew, / Who, loving cold, all other things loves not” (vol. 2, 233). Here “all other things loves not” is simply added by the translator. It could be safely said that the esthetic effect of the six translated poems is very desirable although the rules for setting rhyme patterns are not altogether the same as those in the original. More importantly, Hawkes’ ingenuity in translating like this also fully reveals the talent of the “characters” who composed the poems in the novel. In Chapters 49 and 50, there is a linked poem with the same rhyme composed by about a dozen characters in the novel. The original goes like this—“墙上已 贴出诗题、韵脚、格式来了。宝玉湘云二人忙看时, 只见题目是: ‘即景联句’, 五言排律一首, 限 ‘二萧’韵” (615–616). Hawkes’ corresponding translation is “A paper stuck to the wall announced the theme, form and rhyme for the forthcoming poetry contest. Bao-yu and Xiang-yun, who had not yet seen it, quickly went over to look. This is what it said: / Theme: The Snow / Form: linked pentameters / Rhyme: Eyes” (vol. 2, 487). Here “即景联句” is changed into “The Snow”, which is quite reasonable because it had snowed the day before. But why is the rhyme “二萧” changed into “eyes”, which bears no semantic connection at all? Again, it is purely for the sake of rhyme in translation. For example, the first four lines “一夜北风紧, 开门雪尚飘: 入泥怜洁白, 匝地惜琼瑶” (617–618) is translated into “Last night the north wind blew the whole night through—/ Today outside my door the snow still flies. / On mud and dirt its pure white flakes fall down—/ And powered jade the whole earth beautifies” (vol. 2, 489). The other rhymes adopted by Hawkes are as follows: crystallize, testifies, revivifies, petrifies, lies, disguise, purifies, sanctifies, harmonize, liquefies, good-byes, supplies, terrifies, rise, improvise, plies, defies,

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despise, cries, incise, dies, exorcize, exercize, unties, eyes, tantalize, mystifies, sighs, skies, neutralize, dries, baptize, eulogize. This rhyme pattern alone well justifies why Hawkes changes the rhyme of “二萧” into “eyes”.

5 Conclusion Zhou Ruchang (1989, 93), one of the most influential redologists in China, argues, “Among many artistic features of HLM, the most striking one is its intense and pervading poetic atmosphere and grandness, which never occurs in other novels and thus makes it a long ‘poem’ in the garb of fiction”.6 This statement, to a large extent, demonstrates the importance of poems in this novel which partly account for its great fame and popularity in Chinese culture. These many poems are closely related to the theme, plot, and characterization of the novel, and pose a big challenge for translators because the form and content of the poems are not easy to reproduce effectively in their specific contexts. Rhyme belongs to the category of form and is an essential component of classical Chinese poetry. Hawkes pays great attention to formal beauty when translating poems in HLM, including their rhyme scheme and effect. This article explores how Hawkes uses rhymes in his translation and identifies three methods adopted by him, namely, seeking rhymes according to original meaning as the dominant method, complemented by creating new meaning for the sake of rhyme and adjusting the plot of the novel to create new rhymes. Though these three methods cannot be strictly separated, they have different degrees of salience in a specific translated poem. If the original poem involves the theme or the fate of characters in the novel, Hawkes tries his best to reproduce the overall meaning with little alteration. However, if the poem is only artistically appealing, he gives himself the freedom to change the meaning by adding or omitting some information. This gives rise to his adoption of the two supplementary rhyming methods, which distinguishes him from other translators. It is true that rhymed poems are old-fashioned in contemporary English literature, but in translating poems in HLM, rhyme is always indispensable because it is inherent in the novel, closely connected with its plot, theme, characterization, artistic achievements, and so on. The use of rhyme in translation tests a translator’s ability and creativity. Although John C. Y. Wang (1976, 303) objects to Hawkes’ “insistence on using rhymes in rendering practically all of the numerous poems or verses found in the text” and considers it “a labor of love largely lost”, he also points out that “Hawkes can often achieve an effect that can only be characterized as inspirational”. Rong Liyu (2015, 81) argues that Hawkes achieved the unity of form (rhythm, rhyme, stanza, and line) and content by paying equal attention to similarity in form and in spirit when he translated poems in HLM, and set a good example for the practice of The original Chinese is: 这部小说的许多特色之中最大的一个, 就是那种浓郁强烈的诗的气 息与境界。这在别的小说中是绝无仅有的。可以说, 它整个儿是一首长诗——在小说的外形 下而写出的!

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“translating poetry into poetry”.7 From his use of rhymes alone, we can see Rong’s comment can be well justified.

References Cai, Yijiang. 2010. Appreciation of Poetry in Hong Lou Meng《红楼梦》诗词曲赋鉴赏). ( Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. Cao, Xueqin, and E. Gao. 1964. Hong Lou Meng (红楼梦). Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House. Feng, Qinghua. 2006. On the Translation of Hong Lou Meng (红译艺坛——《红楼梦》翻译艺术 研究). Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. Feng, Quangong. 2015. A Study on David Hawkes’ Rhyming Methods in Translating Poetry in Hong Lou Meng (霍克思英译 《红楼梦》中诗体押韵策略研究). Foreign Language and Translation 4: 17–24. Hawkes, David. 1973/1977/1980. The Story of the Stone (vol. 1,vol. 2, vol. 3, trans.). London: Penguin Books. Rong, Liyu. 2015. A Study of The Story of the Stone by David Hawkes from the Perspective of Poetics (霍克思译 《红楼梦》诗词的诗学观照——从两首译诗说起). Language and Translation 4: 78–82. Wang, Chi-Chen. 1958. Dream of the Red Chamber (trans. and adapted). New York: Anchor Books. Wang, Hongyin. 2001. A Comparative Study on the English Translations of Poetry in Hong Lou Meng 《红楼梦》诗词曲赋英译比较研究). ( Xi’an: Shaanxi Normal University Press. Wang, John C. Y. 1976. Review: The Story of the Stone (vol. 1), “The Golden Days.” The Journal of Asian Studies 2: 302–304. Zhao, Changjiang, and Zhengshuan Li. 2011. A Study of Translation from Chinese Prose into English Poem: Examples from The Story of the Stone by David Hawkes (汉语散体译为英语诗 体转换研究——以霍译 《红楼梦》为例). Foreign Languages in China 2: 87–92. Zhou, Ruchang. 1989. Hong Lou Meng and Chinese Cuture (红楼梦与中华文化). Beijing: The Worker’s Publishing House.

Quangong Feng is an Associate Professor in Translation Studies at the School of International Studies, Zhejiang University. His major research interests include translation theories, Hong Lou Meng translation studies, and translational rhetoric. He has authored three monographs and more than 100 academic articles and book reviews in the field of translation studies.

The original Chinese is: 在诗歌节奏、韵律、诗节、诗行的处理方面最大限度地做到了形式 与内容的统一, 神似与形似的兼顾……完全可以看作是 “以诗译诗、译诗为诗”的成功典范.

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The Motif of Cannibalism as Reconstructed in the English Translations of a Chinese Classical Novel Yunhong Wang

Abstract Many studies have been conducted investigating narration in the field of translation, but most of these mainly focus on the agent and the way of narrating. In a different vein, the present paper will explore the other side, i.e., the narrated aspect, or what is to be narrated. It will center on the issue of motif reconstruction in the three full English translations of a Chinese classical novel Shuihu Zhuan— All Men Are Brothers (1933) by Pearl S. Buck, Outlaws of the Marsh (1980) by Sidney Shapiro, and The Marshes of Mount Liang (1994–2002) by John and Alex Dent-Young. A description of how the motif of cannibalism is presented in each translation will be given based on a parallel corpus of 189 clauses. The discussion of motif belongs to the range of the “narrated,” which is believed to be not only more transposable, but also more translatable than discourse. Despite this translatability, however, the findings reported in the present study reflect that certain motifs of Shuihu Zhuan may be changed or even lost in the translating process. The study of motif reconstruction in translation may very well help to call translation scholars’ attention to the macrostructural level of the text by focusing on “unusualness factors” that are activated and deactivated through mediation of translators. Keywords Motif reconstruction · Shuihu Zhuan · Translation strategy · Cannibalism

1 The Intersection Between Narratology and Translation Studies Over the past decade, translation researchers have paid increasing attention to new perspectives of narratology. “A narratological turn” seems to have come to the fore in the translation field (Wolf 2013: 3). Narratological categories such as voice, point of view, and commentary have been frequently discussed from the angle of translation studies (cf. Hermans 1996; O’Sullivan 2003; Boase-Beier 2006; Bosseaux 2007; Y. Wang (B) Jinan University, Guangzhou, China e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Qi and S. Tobias (eds.), Encountering China’s Past, New Frontiers in Translation Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0648-0_5

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Alvstad 2013; Jansen and Wegener 2013; Assis Rosa 2013). In terms of the interdisciplinary combination of narratology and translation, voice is probably “the most studied category from the angle of translation and its troubles,” perhaps because of “its importance in literature, criticism, and narratology” (Prince 2014: 24; see also Alvstad & Alexandra 2015: 3). The narrator’s discursive presence in narration is very similar to what a translator does with translation. Hermans notices that in the translated narrative, there is always a second voice behind the narrator, the “translator’s voice” (1996: 27), and this second voice manifests itself in three cases: during the text’s orientation toward an Implied Reader; in cases of linguistic self-reflexivity; and of contextual overdetermination where the immediate pragmatic context of the narrative and the complex chain of interaction between the fictional world and the reality bear directly on the text to be translated (1996: 28). Bosseaux (2007) compares the linguistic manifestations of another significant narratological category, point of view, between source and target texts, particularly through comparison of changes that happen in the translation of free indirect discourse and their stylistic effects. Other narrative facets such as commentary, narrative space, and time have also been well investigated in translation studies to explore how translation affects narrative and stylistic effects (cf. Zuschlag 2002; Bernaerts et al., 2014). The narratological categories examined above are more concerned with “the narrating, or the ‘way’” than “the narrated or the ‘what’” (Prince 2014: 28). This confirms what has long been known, namely that the narrated is “not only more transposable, but also more translatable” than the narrating or the way of narration (ibid.: 28). However, as Prince argues, “certain aspects of the narrated are not (readily) transposable either” (2014: 24). There is still much to explore in the domain where narratology and translation studies intersect, particularly when we take into consideration the fact that narratology and translation studies are both now grounded in empirical study and “what we want to account for is the case” (Prince 2014: 29), or in terms of descriptive translation studies, real translations. The translation troubles that real translations may involve are more complicated than the simple issue of translatability of the text. Instead, due attention should be paid to the reality of translation and the historical context of the text. In what follows, this paper will investigate three translations of a Chinese classical novel Shuihu Zhuan based on a parallel corpus of 189 clauses to find out whether and how the narrated reality of a story is altered or even totally lost in the process of translation. The comparative study aims to bring motif reconstruction as a focus of observation in translation and helps to shed new light on the interconnection between narratology and translation studies.

2 Cannibalism as a Motif From the viewpoint of narratology, motif is regarded as “a minimal thematic unit” as well as “a minimal narrative unit at the syntactic level” in quest of a formal system of description of any narrative content (Bremond 1982:130; quoted in Prince 2003:

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55). Any narrative text thus can be decoded into a network of interrelated motifs that work together to elucidate a central idea. A motif must be distinguished from the more abstract and general terms like theme and topos, because a motif is “the smallest fundamental structural and semantic unit” of a folktale or of a story, the same as “a morph to the whole morphological building,” which cannot be further taken apart (Prince 2003: 55). A motif must have “symbolic significance or the reason associated with a particular person, place, or idea” in a story (Wolpers 1995: 39). It is the significance for or the relationship with a certain fictional element, or even the whole fictional plot, that determines whether a unit can become a motif, and this synergy may happen either at the narrative level or at the thematic level. Recursivity is another key factor in the formation of a motif (Bremond et al. 1995; Prince 2003). Originating from musicology, recurrence decides not only the appearance of a motif within a single literary text, but also the life of a motif in a tradition or in a culture. In a literary text, a motif comes to mind when a single thematic kernel is repeated several times. Through its repetition, a motif can help create other narrative or literary aspects, such as a theme. A narrative motif can be created through the recurrent use of “imagery, structural components, language, and other narrative elements” (Bremond et al. 1995: 67). In the West, cannibalism as a motif has a long tradition and has frequently been associated with “the primeval urge to prevent the rise of an offspring to power, the excessive arrogance of man testing the gods and hideous revenge” since the time of Greek mythology (Daemmrich 1987: 56). In Chinese literature and culture, there also exist various facets of cannibalism. Yu (2000) discovers that iatric, or medicinal cannibalism, is fairly prominent in Chinese stories about Guan Yin and the Buddha. In the stories of the previous life of Guan Yin, its human incarnation offers her eyes and hands as medicine to save her dying father. This type of iatric cannibalism is characteristic of Chinese culture. Implied by this practice are certain values promoted by the Confucian and Buddhist traditions, such as filial piety, self-sacrifice, and loyalty (Yu 2001). However, in Ming-Qing fiction, portrayals of anthropophagy are constantly related to famine, revenge, ritual, or disordered appetite, and thus, anthropophagy becomes a powerful symbol in the authors’ discourse on morality (Yu 2001). The case under study is a novel of the late Ming period. Written in vernacular Chinese, the story tells of how a group of 108 outlaws gathered at Liangshan Mountains to form a sizable army in rebellion against officialism and assert justice in the Song Dynasty. As an old motif in Chinese literature, cannibalism is highly energized in Shuihu Zhuan, the best-known outlaw story in Chinese literary history, where it is primarily attached to such themes as rebellion and heroism (Li 2001; Qi 2011; Sun 2012).

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3 The Motif of Cannibalism in the Source Text Shuihu Zhuan, as a grand work of 108 heroes, does not only encompass such universal motifs as travel, captivity, persecution, death, and revenge, but more importantly, accumulates many traditional Chinese culture-specific as well as period-specific motifs that belong to its special historical stage. Themes and motifs have been a focal point in the study of Shuihu Zhuan. For example, Li (2009) identifies a wide range of actions and events taking place at night in Shuihu Zhuan and therefore explores the motif of night and its symbolic significance in the story. Wang and Liu (2010) discuss the significance of the motif jianghu [river and lake]1 in Chinese vernacular fiction by focusing on two characters and their evolution in different art forms, from Shuihu Zhuan to some other literary genres, such as the Ming Legends and the Yangzhou Storytelling. As a prominent and symbolic motif of Shuihu Zhuan, cannibalism was noticed by the first commentator of the novel, a literary critic named Jin Shengtan, as early as the seventeenth century (between the late Ming and early Qing periods). He regarded cannibalism as “a marvellous heroic deed” (Shi & Jin 2011: 367) of the heroes in the story, with it reflecting their rebellious spirit against injustice. Li (2001) observes that the heroes’ principle of cannibalism conveys an instinctive quest for equality because they claim that they will not cannibalize people from the bottom of society such as wandering Buddhist monks, Taoist priests, and prostitutes. Qi (2011) and Sun (2012) both think that cannibalism is the manifestation of fictional writing as a creative art and materialization of “poetic justice” in the fictional world (Sun 2012: 279). In fact, Shuihu Zhuan is so renowned for its cannibalistic motif that some scholars even quote passages from it as hard facts that reflect the social reality toward the turbulent close of the Song Dynasty.2 Cannibalism is no doubt an impressive motif which captures in a striking manner a key element of human perception and valuation during certain periods of history (McCarthy 1995: 135). The motif of cannibalism in Shuihu Zhuan is prominently attached to some important characters, such as Li Kui and Zhang Qing. Descriptions of cannibalism mainly appear in Chapters 27, 31, 32, 36, 41, and 43. The title of Chapter 27, 母夜叉孟州道賣人肉 [Mu Ye Cha Sells Human Flesh on the Mengzhou Road], states openly that human flesh is being sold. In Chapter 27, there are many narrated events and actions depicting cannibalism by different characters. The chapter tells how Wu Song and his guards go into a wine shop to have some wine and meat on the road to Mengzhou Prison. Through Wu Song’s words and eyes, it is gradually revealed that the wine shop involves the selling of human flesh. Although Wu Song does not get killed and eaten, cannibalism as a usual practice among many other people is 1

In Shuihu Zhuan, jianghu repeatedly occurs as a virtual space where the underworld heroes travel and live freely without the chains of officialism. In the source culture, jianghu is more than a motif of place; it is a motif of idea or consciousness particular to a certain group of people as well as a symbolic image motif in the traditional Chinese culture over history (Wang, 2016). 2 In the recently published collection of studies Chugoku Igaishi, historian Okada Hidehiro quotes passages from Shuihu Zhuan as evidence of cannibalism in the Song Dynasty.

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shown through a series of narrative details. Even more importantly, through the wine shopkeeper Zhang Qing’s self-introduction, cannibalism, as a means of asserting justice against corrupted officialism, comes to the fore in this chapter. The human flesh shops run by Zhang Qing and his wife Sun Erniang have become symbolic of cannibalism in Chinese literature and culture over history (Li 2001; Sun 2012). Another human flesh shop of theirs is subsequently depicted in Chapter 31. Chapters 32 and 36 are also associated with the motif of cannibalism, narrating how Song Jiang nearly gets killed and becomes some bandits’ meat, first on Qingfeng Mountain and then on Jieyang Ridge. In these two chapters, cannibalism is depicted in a relatively indirect manner because it turns out that the cannibals and the victims belong to or are associated with the same lower social group or the “underworld.” They are all the so-called good fellows from across the river and lake of Shuihu Zhuan, so cannibalism is not practiced between them. In this case, cannibalism functions more like a touchstone of the friendship between the bandits (Hsia 1984: 87). However, when the motif recurs again in Chapters 41 and 43, graphic description is given to disclose the details of actual cannibalism to the readers. The executor in both scenes is the bandit Li Kui, one of the several most fully-developed characters in Shuihu Zhuan. In these two occurrences, especially in the first case, cannibalism accents the theme of revenge against injustice in an impressive way. In Chapter 41, the heroes from Liangshan Mountains capture Huang Wenbing, an official who has been constantly persecuting Song Jiang, the leader of Liangshan heroes. As a way of taking revenge, Li Kui slices the flesh of Huang Wenbing for the heroes to eat and takes out his liver and heart to make a soup. The detailed, graphic descriptions in this chapter expose bloody cannibalism outright before the eyes of the readers. Besides the above-mentioned chapters, the motif of cannibalism also recurs in many other chapters, albeit in a brief way and usually entwined with more important narrative details. In general, the cannibalism motif is interwoven throughout the story to implicate significant thematic importance for the whole narrative of Shuihu Zhuan. Although the substance of a motif resides in the “qualitative meaning” it conveys, it also features “quantitative recurrences” in the text (Daemmrich 1987: 241). A comprehensive survey finds there are 189 clauses concerning cannibalism in the source text. In order to conduct a comparative study between the target text and source text, the next section will establish a clause-based descriptive model.

4 A Clause-Based Desciptive Model This study looks into three full English translations of Shuihu Zhuan—All Men Are Brothers by Pearl S. Buck (hereafter abbreviated as TT1), Outlaws of the Marsh (TT2) by Sidney Shapiro, and The Marshes of Mount Liang (TT3) by John and Alex Dent-Young. Since the quantitative survey is based on 189 clauses concerning the motif of cannibalism, van Leuven-Zwart’s (1989) clause-based comparative model and her concept of shift bring about some new insights here.

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In the entirety of Shuihu Zhuan, cannibalism appears once in a chapter’s title, i.e., Chapter 27. An initial comparison of how the three translators render the title finds diametrical differences between them. For TT1, Pearl S. Buck literally translates “賣人肉” as “to sell human flesh,” with no semantic shift taking place between the ST and TT1 according to van Leuven-Zwart’s (1989) transeme model because the transeme “sell human flesh” is basically synonymic with the architranseme “sell the flesh taken from the human body.” Obviously, Pearl S. Buck retains the image of cannibalism in her translation, which will be defined as the strategy of “retention” in this study. On the contrary, in Shapiro’s TT2, the transeme “drugged wine” has nothing to do with the semantic meaning of the flesh taken from human body. No architranseme relationship can be perceived between the two. There is an obvious shift happening, the type of shift that van Leuven-Zwart (1989) defines as mutation. As a result of the mutation, the image of cannibalism completely vanishes from the title of TT2. Because such a mutation causes the motif of cannibalism to disappear from the vision of the target readers, it will be defined as “deletion” here. In TT3, the transeme “meat pies” forms a hyponymic relationship with “the flesh taken from the human body” in that there are both conjunction and disjunction between “meat pies” and “the flesh taken from human body.” The shift thus caused is defined as “stylistic modulation or overgeneralization” (van Leuven-Zwart 1989: 157). On account of this stylistic shift, the motif of cannibalism is attenuated and is therefore defined as the strategy of “attenuation.” Other than the examples shown above, it is also found that in some cases, the translated text demonstrates a “mutation towards specification” (van Leuven-Zwart 1989: 159) where the motif of cannibalism is intensified as shown below. ST: (我看他肥胖了), 倒好烧! [(I see he is fat.) It is good to cook].3 TT: (I see he is fat and plump and) he looks good enough to fry and eat!

In the above instance, the architranseme “It is good to cook” is amplified with a specific cannibalistic action in the transeme by the verb “eat.” The word “eat” is added by the translator to foreshadow why Li Kui engages in calculated cannibalization, and thus obviously accents the motif of cannibalism. In respect of the narrative effects that it brings about to the narrated motif, such mutation toward addition and specification is defined as the strategy of “intensification.” In general, the above four strategies are identified in the three translators’ dealing with the motif of cannibalism: deletion, retention, attenuation and intensification. In what follows, both a qualitative and quantitative comparison between the target texts will be made based on the descriptive model established above (Table 1).

3

The translations of the cited Chinese examples done by the author are subsequently provided in brackets.

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Table 1 Translations of the title of Chapter 27 Source text 母夜叉孟州道賣人肉 武都頭十字坡遇張青 [Mu Yecha on the road to Mengzhou sells human flesh Constable Wu at Shizi Ridge meets Zhang Qing] TT1

The she-monster of the sea sells human flesh on the road to Meng Chou. Wu Sung meets Chang Ching at The Cross Roads Ridge

TT2

The Witch of Mengzhou Road Sells Drugged Wine. Constable Wu Meets Zhang Qing at Crossroads Rise

TT3

On the Mengzhou Road the Ogress Sells Meat Pies; Wu Song meets the Gardener at Crossways Rise!

5 A Comparative Survey The present strand conducts a comparative study of the 189 clauses in the corresponding chapters of its three full English translations from the target pole. As is shown in Table 2, a quantitative survey of the 189 clauses finds that the three translators demonstrate different patterns of consistency in applying the four strategies identified above when dealing with the motif of cannibalism. Pearl S. Buck’s translation clearly presents to the target readership the motif of cannibalism by retaining or even reinforcing the narrative details in her translation. She has not only truthfully rendered all of the 189 clauses concerning cannibalism dispersed in the six scenes but has gone even further to show a close graphic description of cannibalism in certain cases through using the strategy of intensification for a large proportion of clauses. She seems to have magnified the motif of cannibalism by adding an explanation, as can be seen in Example (1): (1) 張青便引武松到人肉作坊裏; 看時, 見壁上繃著幾張人皮, 梁上吊著五七條人腿 。見那兩個公人, 一顛一倒, 挺著在剝人凳上。[Zhang Qing led Wu Song into the human flesh work shop. Looking around, they saw that on the walls stretched several human skins and from the beams of the roof hung five or seven human legs. The two guards were already flung down on the human-skinning bench.] — Chapter 27 TT1: Then Chang Ch’ing led Wu Sung into the room where men were cut to pieces and on the walls there were men’s skins stretched tight and nailed there, and upon the beams of the roof there hung several legs of men. Then they saw the two guards lying rigid and unconscious crosswise to each other upon the table where men were cut to pieces....

Table 2 A quantitative survey of clauses describing cannibalism in TTs

Translation strategies

TT1(Pearl S. Buck)

TT2(Sidney Shapiro)

TT3(The Dent-Youngs)

deletion

0

173

0

retention

91

7

67

attenuation

24

9

98

intensification

74

0

24

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Example (1) is from Chapter 27, which portrays the setting of Zhang Qing’s human flesh workroom. Compared with the ST, the detailed interpretations of “人肉作坊”[the human flesh workshop] as “the room where men were cut to pieces” and “剥人凳”[the human-skinning bench] as “the table where men were cut to pieces” in TT1 transform two static names of places into areas of dynamic actions of cannibalization and as such, reveal a graphic picture about how humans are cut and cannibalized. In terms of Boase-Beier’s (2006) discussion of cognitive stylistics, such changes would surely affect the way the motif of cannibalism is reconstructed by the target readers. In 74 out of 189 clauses, Pearl S. Buck adopts the strategy of intensification. Such a large percentage of expanded descriptions about cannibalism in TT1 may help to aggrandize the motif of cannibalism to a certain extent. Cannibalism is both a touchstone of friendship between Liangshan heroes and a means of asserting justice (Hsia 1984; Liu 1991). In this sense, Pearl S. Buck’s version speaks highly of the rebellious spirit of Liangshan heroes, which is exactly what she had appreciated most (1933, 1938). Similar to TT1, the Dent-Youngs’ translation also keeps all of the descriptions concerning cannibalism. However, although the Dent-Youngs retain and present the motif of cannibalism to the target readers, in some cases, they display a significantly different tendency from Pearl S. Buck. Unlike Pearl S. Buck’s expansive inclination of exposing the cannibalism of the original story to Western readers in a graphic and vivid way, the Dent-Youngs are disposed to understate cannibalism by adopting the strategy of attenuation in more than half of the clauses (in 98 out of 189 clauses), similar to the way they deal with the title of Chapter 27. For example, in contrast to Pearl S. Buck, the Dent-Youngs understate the images of “人肉作坊”[the human flesh workshop] and “剝人凳”[the human-skinning bench] by drawing on hyponyms or words from more general semantic categories such as “the work room,” “the workshop,” and “the bench.” Because such expressions are more general and have no reference to cannibalism in a semantic and stylistic sense, the graphic conveyance of cannibalism that is produced in the heavily value-loaded terms of the source text has become unobtrusive in TT3. On the whole, the Dent-Youngs’ translation adopts a reduction strategy in 49.5% of the clauses, and therefore, their translation attenuates the motif of cannibalism to some degree. Completely different from Pearl S. Buck, Shapiro applies the strategy of deletion in 91.5% of the clauses. He practically removes the motif of cannibalism from the story by deleting most of the important narrative details. Instead, he only keeps some indirect or euphemistic allusions to cannibalism in his translation. In the original story, it is through the speech of Wu Song, a fully-developed character in Shuihu Zhuan, that the phenomenon of cannibalization in the fictional world is first introduced to the readers. In Chapter 27, when Wu Song eats and drinks in Sun Erniang’s wine shop, he suspects that what it provides is human flesh, so he quotes a message that has been spreading over “river and lake” as shown in Example (2). (2)武松道: “我從來走江湖上, 多聽得人說道: 大樹十字坡, 客人誰敢那裏過?肥的切做饅頭餡, 瘦的卻把去填河!” [Wu Song said, “Ever since I traveled on river and lake, I have often heard people say, ‘what guest dares to pass by the

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big tree at Shizi Ridge? The fat ones are minced to be fillings of buns and the thin ones are thrown into rivers.’”] — Chapter 27 TT2: Wu Song said, “In my wanderings among the gallant fraternity, I’ve often heard men say: ‘What traveler dares stop by the big tree at Crossroads Rise? The fat ones become filling for dumplings, the thin ones fill up the stream!’”

In the source text, Wu Song’s speech, in particular his mention of the cannibalizing action in Sun Erniang’s wine shop over river and lake, foreshadows and suspends the factual reality of cannibalism that would happen later in the story. With the development of the plot, it is gradually uncovered that cannibalism is indeed usually practiced in the wine shop that Wu Song goes into. However, Shapiro only retains Wu Song’s mention of cannibalization in his translation, whereas all of the other narrative details which reveal the hard facts of cannibalism are entirely deleted. With all of the concrete narrative details concerning anthropophagy completely deleted by the translator, the only retained narrative detail fails in functioning as foreshadowing and suspending the factual cannibalizing actions that happen in the fictional world. No further depiction of cannibalistic reality in TT2 invalidates the message that spreads over river and lake about cannibalism and turns it into pure rumor. Thus, the motif of cannibalism becomes groundless in Chapter 27. The same is true of Chapter 31 where another wine shop of Sun Erniang and Zhang Qing’s is depicted. Through the translator’s deletion, Sun Erniang and Zhang Qing’s wine shop as a symbolic motif of cannibalism in the source system ceases to exist in the translation. In a sense, the translator redirects the translation toward a fictional world that is different from the one presented in the original story. In his translation, Shapiro also obliterates the outright barbarian cannibal actions of Liangshan heroes, most representatively Li Kui, as can be seen in Example (3): (3): 只見黑旋風李逵跳起身來, 說道: “我與哥哥動手割這廝!我看他肥胖了, 倒好燒!” 晁蓋道: “說得是。” 教: “取把尖刀來, 就討盆炭火來, 細細地割這廝, 燒來下酒與我賢弟消這怨氣!” 李逵拿起尖刀, 看著黃文炳...便把尖刀先從腿上割起 。揀好的, 就當面炭火上炙來下酒。割一塊, 炙一塊。無片時, 割了黃文炳, 李逵方把刀割開胸膛, 取出心肝, 把來與眾好漢做醒酒湯。[The Black Whirlwind Li Kui leaped up, saying, “I will chop this thing up by hand for my elder brother! I see he is fat. It is good to cook”. Chao Gai said, “It is right.” Then he commanded, “Bring a dagger and prepare a brazier of coals and slice this thing up. Roast his flesh on the coals to eat with wine and thus release my younger brother’s anger.” Li Kui took up the dagger. He looked at Huang Wen Ping... Then he began to cut the flesh from Huang’s leg with his dagger. He chose some good flesh, roasted it on the coals before him and ate it with wine. He cut piece after piece and then roasted it on the coals one by one. When there was no more flesh, Li Kui cut Huang Wenbing. He opened Huang’s breast and took out the heart and liver to make soup for the chieftains to drink as refresher after their drunkenness.] ---Chapter 41 TT2: Li Kui the Black Whirlwind leaped forward. “I’ll slice the villain for you, brother.” He took a sharp knife, looked at Huang ... He started by carving the prisoner’s legs. It wasn’t long before he had sliced him to ribbons. Only then did Li Kui cut open Huang’s chest, pull out his heart and hold it up for the assembled gallants to see.

Example (3) tells how the heroes from Liangshan Mountains practice cannibalism on the official Huang Wenbing as a means of taking revenge, which provides the most graphic description of cannibalism in the original story. However, in TT2, the

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narrative details about the practice of cannibalization by Liangshan heroes manifested through the two main characters, Li Kui’s calculated actions and Chao Gai’s speech, are entirely deleted. The only sentence that is retained, i.e., “Only then did Li Kui cut open Huang’s chest, pull out his heart and hold it up for the assembled gallants to see,” changes the original message concerning cannibalism, i.e., “把來與眾好漢做醒酒湯” [make soup for the chieftains to drink as a refresher after their drunkenness] to “hold it up for the assembled gallants to see.” With such deletions and adaptations, the translator prevents the target readers from knowing the practice of cannibalism executed by the Liangshan heroes. A circumspect comparison between TT2 and the source text as above most tellingly demonstrates how the motif of cannibalism is mediated by the translator and ultimately lost in TT2. Due to the removal of the cannibalistic motif, Li Kui’s characteristic as the most rebellious spirit of Liangshan heroes is totally lost, whereas the original story invites the reader to “endorse and admire Li K’uei’s calculated cannibalism” (Hsia 1984: 103). Other related motifs in the story, like revenge against enemies and the brotherhood between Liangshan heroes, are also weakened to some degree. More importantly, with respect to the “motif rejuvenation” (Wolpers 1995: 37), the motif of cannibalism, which is featured in the source text and its represented culture, is entirely lost in the process of translating, and its existence fails to continue in another culture, not to mention its rejuvenation across time and space.

6 Discussion Since the cultural turn of the late 1980s, translation studies have begun to focus on textual elements beyond the sentence level or in other words, on the macrostructural level. The introduction of narratological models also results from such considerations, with these models focusing primarily on various factors concerning textual level and macro-structure. As mentioned earlier in this paper, narratological properties concerning the narrating level, such as voice, point of view, and spatial and temporal features, have been thoroughly investigated in translation studies. However, as Prince contends, it does not seem very wise to draw a dichotomy between “a view of narrative as primarily a verbal mode” and “a view of it as a verbal or nonverbal representational arrangement of events” (Prince 2014: 28). There is a need to call for an integrated narratological model that is “mindful of both views” and that pays attention to “any number of representation elements” that vary from language to language, including “themes and thematic links” (Prince 2014: 27). As the minimal thematic units in a narrative, motifs, particularly literary motifs, are believed to bear “a dual nature that joins content and structure” (Wolpers 1995: 46). A comparison of the three translations of Shuihu Zhuan demonstrates that translation does affect motif reconstruction, and the alterations that the act of translation have brought about to motifs in turn affect the narrative composition of the original text. It first exerts an influence on the process of characterization for the concerned characters, particularly in respects of their thematic and symbolic values. Li Kui,

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the executor of cannibalism discussed above, has always been regarded as the most revolutionary figure in Shuihu Zhuan (Hsia 1984; Hanan 1983; Sun 2012). However, Shapiro’s translation removes an array of facets about his cannibalizing action from the formation of Li Kui’s character, as a result of which his image as the most rebellious and revolutionary hero in the original seems to have become implausible. Second, translation also causes the loss of thematic links and therefore changes the plot development. Effects of foreshadowing and suspense that the author creates in the original text about the cannibalizing practice in Zhangqing and Sun Erniang’s human flesh shop are totally lost in Shapiro’s translation, while in the other two translations, the narrative effects are also varied due to the different translation strategies applied. Because a motif is believed to be endowed with “symbolic significance” associated with a particular person, place, or idea in a story (Wolpers 1995: 39), when it is reconstructed through translation in different ways, its significance for or relationship with a certain fictional element or even the whole fictional plot will definitely vary. More importantly, the formation of a motif is decided by its recurrence. Recurrence decides not only the appearance of a motif within a single literary text, but also the life of a motif in a tradition or in a culture (Bremond et al. 1995). There is a never ending process of modification and innovation in the literary history of different languages and periods, enriching the range of motifs as well as creating new culture-specific or period-specific motifs (Daemmrich 1987). In other words, if a motif continues to exist in another language through translation, it opens up possibilities for the rejuvenation of the motif in the literature of a different culture, whereas if the motif is lost in translation, its existence fails to continue in the concerned text as well as in another culture. In the present study, Pearl S. Buck’s translation is good evidence of the former case, while Shapiro’s is a good example of the latter case. Pearl S. Buck has not only presented the target readership with the motif of cannibalism by retaining or even reinforcing the narrated motif in her translation, but she has gone even further, drawing upon such motifs as cannibalism in Shuihu Zhuan to be applied in one of her own literary works, Sons, which is believed to be “a twentieth-century tribute to early Chinese fiction” with a “proximate background” of Shuihu Zhuan (Conn 1996: 139).

7 A Contextualization of the Three Transaltions As Toury points out, “any attempt to offer exhaustive descriptions and viable explanations would necessitate a proper contextualization” (Toury 2012: 29). In what follows, this paper will attempt to seek some explanations for the above phenomena by situating each translation and its translator in the socio-historical context where the translating activity takes place. Pearl S. Buck translated the work into English in the early twentieth century. The Western world of that time witnessed great advancements in every domain of social life after World War I, particularly during the 1920s. Dubbed as The Roaring

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Twenties, it was a dynamic decade, characterized by economic prosperity, technological enhancement, artistic and cultural dynamism in the whole Western world, especially in America (Lamb 2000; Foer 2014). Translation or adaption (Ezra Pound being an outstanding example) from Chinese literature at that time was regarded as an instrument to introduce “innovation to the American national culture and to the Western tradition in general” (Woodsworth 2000: 86). Pearl S. Buck’s importation of the Chinese narrative style and such culture-specific motifs as cannibalism to the target system also fulfilled such a function (Dong 2009; Wang 2016). As mentioned earlier, she went even further, drawing upon such motifs as cannibalism from Shuihu Zhuan to be applied in her own literary writings. The fact that she entitled her Nobel lecture as The Chinese Novel and attributed her success as a novelist to a good understanding of the Chinese novel can well be seen as evidence of her exploration of the Chinese literature as a means to rejuvenate her own writings. Lefevere distinguishes between translations that are “inspired by poetological motivations” and those that are “inspired by ideological motivation” (2004: 7). If Pearl S. Buck’s translation falls into the former category, Shapiro’s translation can be deemed as an example of the latter type. Shapiro’s translation activities were nearly all sponsored by the patronages of the source system. During the late 1950s and the 1960s, because there was long-standing prejudice against the newly-founded People’s Republic of China in the Western world, the Chinese Communist government sought to win support and recognition from countries like the United States through various channels (Shapiro 2000). Many Chinese governmental and nongovernmental organizations started to have contact with their counterparts in the United States (Ni 2012). The translation of Outlaws of the Marsh and many other Chinese classics into English were all carried out by officially appointed scholars and translators between the 1960s and the 1970s, a time when China was determined to establish diplomatic relationships with the two English-speaking superpowers: the United States and the United Kingdom. Translation events over that special historic period were more like a kind of cultural production under manipulation of intermediate patronages of both the target system and the source system. As Wolf argues, when translation becomes a type of cultural production, it always operates “within the political relationships between the countries involved” and “within the domain of cultural exchange” (Wolf 2007: 17). Such cultural production schemes of the Chinese government were essentially expected to reshape general Westerners’ perception of Chinese culture and more importantly, to dissipate any misunderstanding of the communist PRC (Ni 2012). Ideology always manipulates, and it is effective (Lefevere 1992: 9). As Kinkley observes, Chinese official translations are, in effect, “‘rounded down’ to a least common denominator calculated so as not to offend Communist higher-ups or foreign readers” (Kinkley 2004: 248). Differing from Pearl S. Buck’s truthful reproduction of the motif of cannibalism, Shapiro’s translation, as an official one, obviously slants toward smoothing over sharp differences across cultures in order to achieve homogeneity and acceptability. To some extent, Shapiro’s translation achieves the purpose of reconstructing a new national image of Chinese culture in the minds of his implied readers. In this way, the cultural image that Shapiro’s

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translation has created is in accord with both the ideological agenda of its patronage and the expectations of its possible target readers. John and Alex Dent-Yong undertook the translation of Shuihu Zhuan at the turn of the twenty-first century on the tide of an era of globalization. John and Alex DentYoung’s translation of The Marshes of Mount Liang took place in Hong Kong, a crossroad of cultures between the West and the East. It is a place where all kinds of cultures mix with each other. The early stage of the Dent-Youngs’ translation process (between 1994 and 1997) witnessed the colonial history of Hong Kong, while during the late period (between 1998 and 2002), the sovereignty of Hong Kong was handed over to the PRC. Throughout the whole translation process of the novel, Hong Kong experienced considerable political instability, economic crises, cultural reorientation, and identity reconstruction (Shi et al. 2005). The Dent-Youngs aimed to address a new audience of general readers, so they had to “find meaningful equivalents for many local terms and proverbial expressions” while retaining “some flavor of other times and customs” (Dent-Youngs 2010: IX). This resulted in a translation that does not adhere to a fixed pattern of strategy making but always aims to strike a compromise between adequacy to the source text and acceptability of the target text.

8 Conclusion In the recent decade, translation studies and narratology have both begun to “found their discipline empirically and experimentally” (Prince 2014: 29). Similar to what descriptive translation studies has always emphasized, narratology has also switched its orientation toward “pragmatics in investigations” (Prince 2014: 29). Such a common empirical orientation emphasizes that translation studies should take real cases as the main object of study and specify the “contextual factors” that any translation grapples with or evokes (Prince 2014: 23). Translation problems arising in real practices of translated narrative, be it at the narrating level or at the narrated level, should all be given equal and due attention in translation studies. As Prince contends, the combination of translation studies and narratology can help to call translation scholars’ attention to the macrostructural level of the text by focusing on “unusualness factors” including but not limited to taboo motifs in translation as shown in the present study. It is such unusualness in translation that “could be attached to every constituent of the narrative model” (Prince 2014: 30) and therefore is inclined to be “activated and deactivated depending on circumstance” (Prince 2014: 30). As evidence of the translator’s hidden discursive presence, any shifts or alterations on motif reconstruction should, of course, be accounted for and integrated into a “comprehensive narrative inquiry” (Prince 2014: 31). In other words, it is also of great necessity to carry out studies on narratological categories at the narrated level or the story level in the line of research into translation and narration. In this respect, translation and motif reconstruction can be a good starting point for further exploration into the “narrated” aspect.

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Acknowledgements The author acknowledges support from China National Funds for Philosophy and Social Sciences (中国国家社会科学基金项目) [Grant No. 19BZW073] and China Scholarship Council (中国国家留学基金管理委员会) [File No. 201906785019].

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Lefevere, A. 1992. Translation, Rewriting and the Manipulation of Literary Fame. London and New York: Routledge. Leuven-Zwart, K.M.van. 1990. Translation and Original:Similarities and Dissimilarities II. Target 2 (1): 69–95. Li, H.R. 2001. The Phenomenon of Cannibalism Through Tang to Song. Journal of Northwest China Normal University 1: 23–30. Li, Z.K. 2009. Shuihu Zhuan De Yehua Xushi Xingtai Jiqi Wenhua Yiyun [The Narrative Style of “Actions in the Night” and Its Cultural Implication in Heroes of the Marshes]. Nankai Journal (philosophy Literature and Social Science Edition) 1: 35–44. McCarthy, J.A. 1995. Madness, Hysteria and Mastery. In Thematics Reconsidered: Essays in Honor of Horst S. Daemmrich, ed. T. Frank. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Ni, X.H. 2012. A Survey of the English Translations Published by the Foreign Languages Press of China During 1966–1976. Chinese Translators Journal 5: 25–30. O’Sullivan, E. 2003. Narratology Meets Translation Studies, or, the Voice of the Translator in Children’s Literature. Meta 48 (1–2): 197–207. Prince, G. 2003. A Dictionary of Narratology (Revised version). Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press. Prince, G. 2014. Narratology and Translation. Language and Literature 23 (1): 23–31. Qi, Y.K. 2011. On the Blooding Violence in Shuihu Zhuan. Journal of Ming-Qing Fiction Studies 2: 82–93. Shapiro, S. 1980. Outlaws of the Marsh. Beijing: Foreign Language Press. Shapiro, S. 2000. I Chose China: The Metamorphosis of a Country and a Man. New York: Hippocrene Books. Shi, N.A., and S.T. Jin. 2011. Shuihu Zhuan—Jin Shengtan’s Edition. Hunan: Yuelu Publishing House. Shi, X., M. Kienpointner, and J. Servaes, eds. 2005. Read the cultural other: Forms of otherness in the discourses of Hong Kong’s decolonization. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Sun, S.Y. 2012. Shuihu Zhuan: Zenyang de qiangdao shu[Shuihu Zhuan—An Outlaw Story]. Shanghai: Shanghai Rarebooks Publishing House. Thompson, S. 1989. Motif-index of Folk-Literature: A Classification of Narrative Elements in Folktales, Ballads, Myths, Fables, Mediaeval Romances, Exempla, Fabliaux, Jest-books, and Local Legends. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Toury, G. 2012. Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Trommler, F., ed. 1995. Thematics Reconsidered: Essays in Honor of Horst S. Daemmrich. Amsterdam: Rodopi. van Leuven-Zwart, K.M. 1989. Translation and Original: Similarities and Dissimilarities I. Target 1 (2): 151–181. Wang, L., and C. Liu. 2010. Female Revenge in The Water Margin and the Motifs in Buddhist Stories. Journal of Shanxi University 33 (5): 21–26. Wang, Y. H. 2016. A Study of Three English Translations of Shuihu Zhuan. PhD Thesis. Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Wolf, M. 2007. Introduction-The Emergence of a Sociology of Translation. In Constructing a Sociology of Translation, ed. Michaela Wolf and Alexandra Fukari, 1–38. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Wolf, M. 2013. Introduction to Cetra. Belgium: University of Leuven. Wolpers, T. 1995. Motif and Theme. In Thematics Reconsidered: Essays in Honor of Horst S. Daemmrich, ed. Trommler Frank. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Woodsworth, J. 2000. Translation in North America. In The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation, ed. Peter France, 81–89. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wu, X.X. 2013. Lun Pan Jinlian xingxiang de wenxue jieshou [On the Acceptance of the Image of Pan Jinlian in Literature]. Yu Wen Xue Kan [Journal of Language and Literature Studies] 1: 122–125.

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Yunhong Wang holds a PhD degree in translation and interpreting studies from Hong Kong Polytechnic University and is an Associate Professor in the College of Foreign Studies, Jinan University (Guangzhou, China). Her research interests include translation theory, literary translation studies, and translation history. She has published articles in referred SSCI/A&HCI and CSSCI journals such as Perspectives, Babel and Neohelicon and a monograph English Translations of Shuihu Zhuan—A Narratological Perspective with Springer.

Monkey’s Journey to the West: How Manifold Versions of One Translation Helped to Disseminate a Classic Chinese Original Wenyan Luo

and Binghan Zheng

Abstract Many efforts have been made to facilitate the worldwide circulation of Journey to the West, a classical Chinese literary canon. This article studies the dissemination of Journey by focusing on one of its many English translations, namely Monkey: A Folk-tale of China. Monkey was first translated by Arthur David Waley and originally published by George Allen & Unwin in London in 1942. Based on actornetwork theory, this research explores the agents that generated, and the dynamics that underpinned the network of translations (different versions of Monkey), which in turn extensively increased the circulation of the translation (Monkey). Discussions will be made based on the correspondence exchanged between a wide range of translation agents participating in the production of the English versions and the many re-translations of Monkey. Supporting data from other sources such as A Bibliography of Arthur Waley (Johns, A Bibliography of Arthur Waley, The Athlone Press, London, 1988) will be referenced where necessary. Through analysing how translation agents assembled, together with necessary resources (i.e. people and material objects), to produce and promote Monkey, the article reveals the very particular and practical translational and material conditions under which the many versions of Monkey were produced and disseminated. The article emphasises that, besides the translator, publishers were crucial in translation production and promotion, and therefore, publisher agencies should not be downplayed in translation studies. Keywords Journey to the West · Arthur Waley’s Monkey · Overseas dissemination · Translation agents · Translation production · Publisher agency

W. Luo The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong B. Zheng (B) Shanxi University, China & Durham University, Durham, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Qi and S. Tobias (eds.), Encountering China’s Past, New Frontiers in Translation Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0648-0_6

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1 Introduction This study examines the spread of Monkey: A Folk-tale of China (Monkey) in Western countries during the 1940s and the 1960s. Monkey is Arthur Waley’s English translation of Journey to the West (Journey), a Chinese literary classic widely known as authored by Wu Cheng’en (吴承恩)1 in the Ming Dynasty (c.sixteenth century). The translation was first published by George Allen & Unwin (GA&U) in London in 1942, and since then, it has been reprinted many times in the UK, the US and European and Asian countries. He and He (2016) argue that Monkey is the most influential English translation of Journey as, according to their statistics, Monkey had been reprinted by different publishing houses 22 times up to 2015. These include reprints re-translated from Waley’s Monkey in Czech, Romanian, Hungarian and Arabic (He and He 2016), which were not included in Luo’s survey (2020). However, Luo listed 25 versions of Monkey, some of which were not included by He and He (2016) either. This difference indicates that the number of versions of Monkey that have been circulated worldwide is larger than has been counted in existing research. Such a large-scale and long-range dissemination is a rare case in the history of Chinese-English translation. Monkey stands out as an extraordinary and popular translation among many translations of Journey, which has caught the attention of researchers in Translation Studies. The majority of existing studies on Monkey focus on the translated text. For example, some investigate Waley’s translation methods and evaluate the translation by comparing it with the original text (Liu 1984; Wong 2013; Wang and Li 2018). There are also studies that compare Waley’s translation with another translators’ work in order to explore the factors that led to the two distinctive translations (Stefan 2020). Li’s (2014) thesis is another example which compares the translation of proper names in Waley’s, Yu’s and Jenner’s translations of Journey. Luo (2020) uses actor-network theory to explore the translation agents and networks involve in the production of Monkey. Moreover, studies have been conducted on the history of dissemination of the original Journey; for example, Wang (1980, 1999) studies the worldwide spread of Journey by gathering and categorising its translations in various languages. He and He (2016) argue that Journey achieved worldwide dissemination in two ways—that is, via overseas Chinese and via translation. They indicate that Monkey was re-translated into Arabic and languages of some Central and Eastern European countries, which facilitated Journey’s spread in those regions (ibid.). That being the case, very little research has been done specifically on the role of Monkey in the spread of Journey in the West. This research investigates how Monkey, as one but probably the most popular and influential, of the many translations of Journey, helped to disseminate the original novel. By looking at the translator’s translation strategies, the form of the translation and its peculiar method of circulation, this article focuses on the uniqueness of the translation and considers the practical historical, translational and material conditions under which the production of Monkey progressed. The material used mainly consists of the correspondence exchanged between the translator Arthur Waley, the publisher Stanley Unwin, the typographer 1

Although disputes exist over the authorship of the novel (e.g. Cai 1990 and Wu 2002).

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David Unwin, the designer Duncan Grant and publishers from the UK and other countries who discussed the possibility of publishing Monkey with the publisher S. Unwin. The correspondence was retrieved from the Records of George Allen & Unwin (the Records) preserved in the University of Reading, Special Collections. This research is based on actor-network theory (ANT) which was first developed between the 1970s and 1980s by a group of sociologists including Michel Callon, Bruno Latour and John Law. ANT is a unique sociological approach. Its distinctiveness is largely due to its inclusion of both human and nonhuman actors (Callon 1986). Actor in ANT does not refer to human only; it also includes all things that can make changes to other things or events (Latour 2007). ANT proponents argue that actors act and interact to connect, thus forming actor-networks which constitute society. Society, therefore, is perceived as consisting of networks of interconnected actors. To understand social development, researchers need to “follow the actors” (Latour 2007), to see how they establish networks that assemble power and facilitate the circulation of resources (Latour 1987), which eventually forms society. Simply speaking, “follow the actors” means to trace the trails left by actors when they interact to form networks. Various actors appeared in the process of disseminating Monkey. This research follows the actors’ traces left in their correspondence to see how they weaved the network of dissemination that helped to spread the translation in the UK, US and afterwards, some European countries (as re-translations into European languages). By exploring the process of disseminating Monkey in those countries, this research aims to reveal the actors that contributed to that process, and how they co-operated to achieve wide circulation, during the particular period in history. Dissemination is an important and indispensable stage in any translation project. Studying the dissemination process of the translation, as it naturally develops, by applying ANT, helps to represent the translation in a more comprehensive way. As will be shown in this research, the dissemination of Monkey was quite successful. Learning from past experience may also help translation participants to be more prepared when they need to find better ways to interact in order to boost the circulation of more translations in future.

2 Journey: The Chinese Original Journey, together with Romance of the Three Kingdoms 《三国演义》), ( Water Margin 《水浒传》) ( and Dream of the Red Chamber 《红楼梦》), ( constitutes the Four Great Classical Novels of pre-modern Chinese literature. First published in the sixteenth century Ming Dynasty China, Journey has been one of the most read and loved novels for Chinese people of all ages and backgrounds for centuries. While “journey to the West” is exactly what the Chinese title literally means in English, the novel is also known as X¯ı Yóu Jì, the transliteration of the Chinese original title “西游记”.

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Journey is one of the earliest Chinese classical mythic fictions. It is “classical” as it is divided into chapters, each of which tells one story with a caption as the title previewing the story of the chapter. The chapters of story are usually complete and independent. It is meanwhile a “mythic fiction” because most of the characters are not human, but immortals, Bodhisattvas, spirits, demons and monsters, excelling in magic arts, tricks and legendary weapons, and many of its stories draw from myth and folklore and develop in imaginary settings. The only historical fact Journey is based on is Xuanzang’s pilgrimage (玄奘, also known as Tripitaka), undertaken during the Tang Dynasty,2 to the birthplace of Buddhism (now modern India) for the purpose of getting Buddhist scripts. In the one hundred chapters novel, Xuanzang is depicted as the master, followed by three disciples, namely Sun Wukong (the Monkey), Zhu Wuneng (the Pig) and Sha Wujing (Sandy or Friar Sand). The master and his disciples trudge across central Asia, fighting against demons and spirits and overcoming many obstacles, before they eventually arrive at their destination, obtain the Buddhist texts and return to the Great Tang. Xuanzang, historically the hero, becomes one of the four main characters in the fiction. Rigid and timid, the fictional Xuanzang is outshone by the protagonist Sun Wukong, a brave, resourceful and mischievous heroic character with extraordinary magic power. The novel is written with good humour and wild imagination. Ideas or elements of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism are brought together. The stories of the novel are, moreover, borrowed and developed from a rich repertoire of ancient Chinese myth, folklore and legends. It is claimed that the novel is a combination of a great number of stories which converged from various literary and artistic genres, including historical records such as Great Tang Records on the Western Regions (大唐西域记), biographies such as Biography of the Da Ci’en Temple Tripitaka Master (大慈恩寺三藏法师传) and also novellas, Buddhist scriptures, operas and many more (see Zhu and Liu 1983; Cai 2010; Zhu 2012). Stories had been disseminating and evolving over hundreds of years before Wu Cheng’en adapted and compiled them in Journey (Cai 2007). That means that many pieces or fragments of the novel had long been spreading and passing down in various forms among generations of Chinese people. From the earliest publication of Journey in 1592 by Shidetang, a private publishing house in Nanjing, the novel was received with high enthusiasm among readers and critics, and the title unsurprisingly became popular in many publishing houses. Cao’s (2010) study reveals that at least 14 versions of Journey were produced by different publishing houses during the Ming Dynasty alone. The figure surged in modern China, as is shown in a statistical report in 2007 that 349 editions of Journey were produced by 130 publishing companies, of which 208 editions were circulating in the book market (Chen 2007). 38,274 volumes of the top 10 best-selling modern editions of Journey were sold up to the year 2007 (ibid.). Alongside the miscellaneous editions, sequels (see Wang 2004; Li 2006), parodies (see Jia 2012), adaptations and comics of the novel have proliferated. The novel has not only appeared in text, 2

The Tang Dynasty is the imperial dynasty that rules ancient China from 618 to 907 CE.

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paper or electronic form, but has also been staged in traditional operas and new serial plays, and has been screened in films, TV series and even animations (see Yao 2006) and video games. Such a canonical and influential novel has found various ways to travel outside China. One major means is through text translation. According to Luo (2020), at least 28 English translations of Journey have appeared in the market as independent books. Five of these 28 versions are considered outstanding translations of the original in terms of the plot and the content they convey and whether they have their own distinctive features (ibid.): A Mission to Heaven (1913) translated by Timothy Richard; Monkey: A Folk-tale of China (1942) by Arthur Waley; The Journey to the West (1977–1983) by Antony Yu; Journey to the West (1977–1986) by William Jenner; and Monkey King: Journey to the West (2021) translated by Julia Lovell. Of these 5 translations, Monkey further emerges as a unique translation and is probably the most widely circulated among them.

3 Monkey: A Unique English Translation of Journey Arthur Waley was an Orientalist, Sinologist and translator. The majority of his works are translations from Chinese and Japanese literature. In the early stage, Waley mainly translated Chinese and Japanese poetry; he later translated works of other literary genres such as novels and philosophical texts. The most popular translations of Waley include A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1918) and The Tale of Genji (1921– 1933). Waley was particularly well known for his translation of classical Chinese poetry, which was highly praised, widely received and thought to have contributed to British modernisation (Perlmutter 1971). He translated many poems from Chinese, as well as a series of novels and stories from Japanese, but only one novel from Chinese, namely Monkey. Waley taught himself to read Chinese when working at the British Museum. After leaving the job, Waley fully engaged himself in translation and writing. Despite his profound scholarly knowledge, Waley aimed to translate and write for the public, which is reflected in his prefaces to his translations. For example, in the Preface to The Way and Its Power, Waley emphasised that the book was not for “a small class of specialists”, but “for all intelligent people, that is to say, all people who want to understand what is going on in the world around them” (Waley 1994, 11). This partly explains the reason why Waley’s translations became so popular among a general readership. The translation strategies that Waley used for Journey were idiosyncratic. In his preface to the translation, Waley emphasises that the translation method was “opposite” (Wu [Waley trans.] 1994, 7) to previous translations. Instead of keeping the chapters in abridged forms as other translators did, Waley selected certain stories from the original and with some editing, translated 30 chapters out of the original 100. The parts of the novel selected were translated “almost in full” (ibid., 7), except that the majority of the verses were deleted as, in Waley’s opinion, the verses would

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“go very badly into English” (ibid., 7). As can be seen, Waley omitted the verses because he thought they were not helpful in increasing the readability of the novel. In fact, Waley did not quite like Wu’s poems, as he commented in the preface: “He [Wu] had some reputation as a poet, and a few of his rather common place verses survive in an anthology of Ming poetry and a local gazetteer” (ibid., 7). On the other hand, Waley was particularly interested in retaining the colloquial language of the original, most of which, he noted, was abandoned in previous translations. This explains why he kept almost all conversations from the original. The contrasting approach Waley took in translating already indicates Monkey’s uniqueness in comparison with previous translations. It is exactly this uniqueness that has later become a source of contention, provoking conflicting views among reviewers and translators. The Waley translation was warmly received by literary reviewers. In his review entitled “A Comic Classic”, Turner (1942) expressed his positive view on the comic values of the translation when he compared Monkey with Don Quixote: “The humour of Monkey comes from an all-prevailing intellectual vigour” (ibid., 109). He called the adventurous pilgrimage as described in the translation as being “the most extraordinary”, which, to a European reader, looks like “an entire foreign and novel landscape … full of new and delightful features” (ibid., 109). Priest (1943) and Morgan (1974) were also attracted by the adventure, magic and humour rendered in the translation. These literary critics judged the translation as “elegant and witty” (Morgan 1974, 220) and considered Waley to be “a translator a charmer” (Priest 1943, 134) who “has done his work of selection and translation supremely well” (Turner 1942, 109). In contrast to the literary critics who have always been positively enthusiastic towards the translator Waley and his Monkey as a novel or a translation, opposing views exist on Monkey as a translation among translators such as Hu Shi and Anthony Yu. In his introduction to the American edition of Monkey, Hu referred to Waley’s as a “most admirable and most delightful translation” (Hu 1994, 4). While Hu “mildly regretted” (ibid.) the untranslated parts of the original, he nevertheless acknowledged that Waley was indeed skilful in his selection of the stories, and appreciated his vivid rendition of humour in conversations and richness of colloquial language (ibid.). Yu (1977), by contrast, criticised Waley for omitting more than two-thirds of the original and leaving the verses untouched even though Waley had proven himself to be fairly accomplished at translating Chinese poems. This, to Yu, was detrimental to “the fundamental literary form of the work” and “the narrative vigour and descriptive power of its language” (ibid., x). Thanks to the innovative translation strategies employed by Waley, Monkey is famous for being a unique but only occasionally contentious translation. The uniqueness of Monkey, however, not only rests on the content but also on the form. When the publisher Stanley Unwin first read the drafts of Monkey, he was thrilled by “a curious combination of beauty and absurdity” (Unwin to Waley, 22 October 1941, UoR AUC 127/7) of the translation and decided to produce “the best form” (ibid.) for it. With the help of Waley, Unwin recruited Duncan Grant, who designed the jacket and the title page for Monkey. The typographer David Unwin, on the other hand, devised a particular typesetting for the translation. Despite a wartime shortage of materials and staff, restrictions from wartime publishing regulations and limited printing technology, the

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above-mentioned people, together with many others, managed to produce a “very striking” book cover (D. Unwin to Grant, 22 May 1942, UoR AUC 138/5) and a typesetting “out of the ordinary” (D. Unwin to Waley, 14 November 1941, UoR AUC 127/7). By combining these two aspects (i.e. the cover and typesetting), the publisher aimed to achieve an unusual form to match the uniqueness of the translation. In addition to its unique content and form, Monkey took on distinctive methods of circulation. It circulated in English in the UK and the US in different versions at almost the same time, which was an unusual gesture by the publisher. Meanwhile, the translation was further translated into various languages for the purpose of being spread beyond the English-speaking world. This is partly due to the particular historical period and production conditions, and partly because of the popularity of Waley’s English translation. These various versions and translations of Monkey further helped to disseminate the original Journey.

4 Monkey’s Journey to the West Monkey was received with global enthusiasm. Under peculiar social, historical and translational circumstances, the translation was published in different versions by various publishers in Britain and the US, which George Allen & Unwin would probably not allow in normal times. Moreover, while the English versions of Monkey were gaining attention among an English-speaking readership, Monkey was attracting the attention from many foreign publishers, in particular from Europe and Asia. This resulted in the generation of a variety of translations of Monkey into, for example, Indian vernacular and some European languages, and hence its dissemination in those areas, which in turn facilitated the spread of the Chinese original, Journey. Adding the versions of Monkey included in Johns (1988) to the Records, at least 25 versions of Monkey were produced between the 1940s and the 1970s (Luo 2020). These contain 1 original edition and 6 reprints, 1 edition by Unwin Paperbacks (subsidiary of GA&U), 5 UK editions by different publishing companies other than GA&U, 2 American editions, 1 American Juvenile edition and 9+3 re-translations in European and Indian vernacular languages. The number should be much larger, because: firstly, as has been previously indicated, the Records and Johns (1988) do not include all the versions of Monkey (cf. He and He 2016); and secondly, they only include reprints of the original GA&U edition while leaving reprints of the rest of the editions and re-translations of Monkey unrecorded. Such large-scale dissemination of Journey via Monkey, one of its translations, and further translations based on this translation (Monkey) in the West, is a rare case in the history of Chinese-English literary translation. Some overviews have been done concerning the worldwide circulation of Journey (Wang 1980, 1999) and the century-long English translation history of the Chinese original (Zheng and Wu 2012). Monkey was only one title of the many translations of Journey as enumerated 3

The full number of Indian vernacular languages that Monkey was translated into is not clear.

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in those studies. The fact that Monkey alone extensively facilitated the worldwide circulation of Journey has been largely overlooked in the literature in general, and therefore, little researched in Translation Studies. Nevertheless, Luo (2020) highlights Monkey’s expansion through its editions, reprints and re-translations, with an emphasis on the production of the original GA&U edition and some of its reprints. Based on Luo (2020), the present article further explores how Monkey “journeyed to the West” across Europe and the US, as the efforts of many agents each working in particular translational conditions. The present research is based on data from the Records; however, not all the 25 versions of Monkey listed in Luo (2020) were recorded (see Table 1 for the recorded versions): (1) the printing of the 5th, the 6th and the 7th impressions of the original GA&U edition was not mentioned; (2) a re-translation published in 1945 by Cervantes, Barcelona, Spain, and another published by Saman Mudhn¯aly, Matara, Sri Lanka, in 1962, were not included, as letters between 1944 and 1946, and 1959 and 1965, were not preserved; and (3) 3 UK editions issued by Blackie, Fontana and Unwin Paperbacks in the 1970s were not found, as the Records ends in 1966 (cf. Table 1, Luo 2020). Moreover, the information recorded was insufficient for a comprehensive analysis of the agents and networks that facilitated Monkey’s spread in the West. The selection of the versions for discussion and the aspects for discussion are decided by the availability of the information. Since the Records was actually publishing records of GA&U, moreover, the research inevitably takes a GA&U perspective.

4.1 Monkey in the UK 4.1.1

The Original George Allen & Unwin (GA&U) Edition

While translators may have to translate according to the publisher’s requirements or their work of translation may undergo immense changes for publishing purposes (Bogic 2010), Waley was entirely independent during translation, and his typescript was accepted without any change except for some proofreading work which Waley did himself (Luo 2020). The translating process was private, independent and little discussed between Waley and other participants in the translation project. The only available information that is directly connected with the translating process is the translator’s preface to the translation, in which Waley briefly introduced the original novel and some previous translations and explained his own translation methods (Wu [trans. Waley] 1994). Staying private and independent during translating, Waley nevertheless needed to collaborate with others in the rest of the stages of the translation production. Besides proofreading, Waley also played an important role in the book design process. At the publisher’s request, Waley recommended his friend Duncan Grant for the task of cover design and helped to recruit Grant with a moderate payment (Unwin and Waley, 31 October & 3 November 1941, UoR AUC 127/7; Unwin and Grant, 7 & 9

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Table1 Versions of Monkey recorded in the records No

Country (region)

Category

Publishing House

1

UK (EU)

Edition ([1st impression of] the original GA&U edition)

GA&U, London English

July 1942

2

UK (EU)

Reprint (2nd impression of the original edition)

GA&U, London English

February 1943

3

UK (EU)

Reprint (3rd impression of the original edition)

GA&U, London English

July 1943

4

UK (EU)

Reprint (4th impression of the original edition)

GA&U, London English

February 1944

5

UK (EU)

Edition (Readers Union [RU] edition)

RU, London

English

1944

6

UK (EU)

Edition (Penguin edition)

Penguin Books, Harmondsworth

English

1961

7

UK (EU)

Edition (Folio edition)

Folio Society, London

English

1968

8

Switzerland (EU)

Re- translation

Artemis, Zürich

German

1947

9

Sweden (EU)

Re- translation

Ljus, Stockholm,

Swedish

1949

10

Holland (EU)

Re- translation

Contact, Antwerp

Dutch

1950

11

France (EU)

Re- translation

Payot, Paris

French

1951

12

Italy (EU)

Re- translation

Einaudi, Turin

Italian

1960

13

Switzerland (EU)

Re- translation

Gutenberg, Zürich

German

(Not known)

14

India (South Asia)

Re- translation

NIP, Bombay

(Not known)

(Not known)

15

US

Edition (John Day [JD] edition)

JD, New York

English

1943

16

US

Edition (John JD, New York Day [JD] juvenile edition)

English

1944

17

US

Edition (Grove edition)

English

(Not known)

Grove Press, New York,

Language

Publication Time

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November 1941, UoR AUC 112/19). He occasionally mediated between the publisher and the designer afterwards, for instance, when Grant had not received copies of the published translation (Waley to Unwin, 9 October 1942, UoR AUC 154/4). Waley was, moreover, asked for his opinion on typesetting of the translation by the publisher (Unwin to Waley, 11 November 1941, UoR AUC 127/7) and on the final draft of the covers by the cover designer (Grant to Unwin, 23 January 1942, UoR AUC 138/5). In addition, Waley kept himself active and well informed in the production process even though he would not be able to have direct involvement in every stage of translation production. A typical example is where he managed to persuade and offered help to the publisher to re-stock Monkey when the 3rd impression was out of print during Christmas and the Chinese Mission’s visit (Waley to Unwin, 22 December 1943, UoR AUC 181/1). Interestingly, contrary to the production of the main text which was efficient and smooth, the production of Grant’s designs caused much trouble. Waley’s translation typescript was independently drafted, readily accepted and easily printed. Grant, on the other hand, received some guidelines and then some suggestions for his design. He was required to design a jacket and a title page that could represent the spirit of Monkey and meanwhile conform to the requirements for publication formulated by the publisher according to publishing conditions during that period of time (Unwin and Grant, 1, 4 & 6 January 1942, UoR AUC 138/5). The designs were changed a few times due to lack of materials and the taste of the publisher and the typographer (Unwin and Grant, 28 January, & 1, 7 & 9 February 1942, UoR AUC 138/5), and the printing of the jacket design was frustrating for all involved. Because of technological difficulties, Grant’s jacket design was re-drawn by the engraver’s artist without permission during proof production (Unwin to Grant, 3 March 1942, UoR AUC 138/5). This unexpected incident generated disagreement between Unwin and Grant, who had to negotiate and test new methods for production (Unwin and Grant, 26 February 3 & 10 March, & 21 April 1942, UoR AUC 138/5). This, plus a delay in binding (Unwin to Waley, 3 July 1942, UoR AUC 154/4), postponed the publication of the translation for several months. Moreover, it should not be forgotten that Waley undertook the translation in 1941 during World War II. Actually, the production of the first five impressions of the original edition of Monkey by GA&U fell entirely within the timespan of the war. The same also applies to the RU edition, and the JD and JD juvenile editions. In sum, the majority of the English versions under study in this research, i.e. 7 out of 9, were produced during World War II. These versions, as well as their production process, were greatly influenced by the war. Yang (2008) believes Waley chose to translate Journey during the war because, on the one hand, the story was amusing, which helped to relieve the suffering in wartime; on the other hand, Monkey’s rebellious spirit coincided with Waley’s intention to express his hatred towards the war. However, there lacks direct evidence to support the statement, so whether the war actually gave Waley an incentive to translate Journey is still questionable (Luo 2020). It is also not certain whether the war influenced Waley’s translation strategy. There is, nevertheless, solid evidence that the war did affect the “form” of the translation. Upon initiating the translation project, Unwin

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seemed to be more concerned with the design of the translation than its text. Book publishing during wartime abided by strict regulations on aspects such as typesetting and paper weight (see a discussion on Book Production War Economy Agreement in Holman 2008). As previously discussed, therefore, in addition to making specific restrictions for cover designs, the publisher and the typographer devised new typesetting methods, managing to create a form that could reflect the “beauty and absurdity” of the translation (Unwin to Waley, 22 October 1941, UoR AUC 127/7). The production conditions were worsened by material shortages during the war period: Grant had only limited colours for cover paper to choose from (Unwin to Grant, 6 January 1942, UoR AUC 138/5) and the lilac binding cloth of first choice had to be substituted later due to a supply failure (7 February 1942, UoR AUC 138/5). The result was that Grant’s designs were significantly different from what he would have designed if not for material deficiency. While the translator was mainly responsible for translating the text, the publisher took care of almost all the other publishing stages of the translation. Besides initiating the project and deciding the book design, as has been mentioned above, the publisher also arranged marketing campaigns for the translation. The major means of publicity, according to the available historical material, was advertising the translation in newspapers and literary magazines on a regular basis (see Luo 2020). For newspaper advertisements, the publisher mainly asked the translator to write a short descriptive paragraph for the book (Unwin to Waley, 31 October 1941, UoR AUC 127/7), which was probably used as the advertising material. Book reviews also appeared in magazines, complementing newspaper advertisements. The reviewers, although it is not clear whether they were commissioned by the publisher, joined the publisher, translator, newspaper editors and many others in the publicity of Monkey.

4.1.2

Reprints of the GA&U Edition

The reprint of the GA&U edition was again affected by the war. Every impression of Monkey produced during wartime experienced paper and staff shortages, which was one reason for the small number of copies allocated for each impression. The number of copies fluctuated between 2000 and 3000 per impression (2750, 2200, 2000, 2900), and the total did not exceed 10,000 for the first four impressions (see Johns 1988). The correspondence shows that Unwin had been engaging actively in reprinting the translation. For example, Waley won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his translation of Journey (Monkey) in early 1943. Upon hearing the news, Unwin quickly printed the then 3rd impression by March while the 2nd impression, just issued in February, was still in stock (Unwin to Waley, 10 March 1943, UoR AUC 181/1). This 3rd impression was released in July, four months later than its production. Unwin acted months ahead because he believed that the sales of the book would surge in response to the prize, and he did not want the translation to experience a supply failure “again” (ibid.). The word “again” indicates that the 2nd impression was probably not stocked in time.

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However, conditions reached their worst in late December of 1943, when the 3rd impression of Monkey was out of print. Even after some paper quota was obtained with great effort, and with the translation being given production priority, there were far from enough hands to operate printing machines—many printers were either enlisted in the army or “devastated” by an influenza epidemic (Unwin to Waley, 23 December 1943, UoR AUC 181/1). The belated 4th impression unfortunately missed its golden sales period of Christmas and the Chinese Mission’s visit. According to Johns 1988 and the copyright page of available copies of Monkey, new impressions continued to appear though no relevant information was found in the Records.

4.1.3

The Readers Union (RU) Edition

The publisher’s production capacity, severely damaged by wartime supply and labour shortage, could not satisfy the larger market demand for the translation. The publisher was, therefore, forced to sell the rights for printing Monkey very early to other publishers who had the capacity to produce more copies. Just when the publishing company was struggling with paper and printer shortages for the production of the 4th impression, John Baker from the Readers Union (RU) proposed to buy the rights to publish an RU edition of up to 20,000 copies of Monkey in the UK (Baker to Unwin, 1 September 1943, UoR AUC 176/10). This was two times the total amount of copies of the first four GA&U impressions. Although the payment proposed was not very inviting, the publisher saw the offer as an opportunity to “re-arouse interest” in the translation and would not interfere with the sales of their original edition (Unwin to Waley, 21 September 1943, UoR AUC 181/1). The RU edition and the 4th impression of the original GA&U edition both came out in 1944, not long before World War II ended. No sale of publishing rights for any UK domestic edition was made after the War, whereas new impressions of GA&U’s own edition continued to appear. This may be partly because the sales of Monkey declined and partly because GA&U resumed its production capacity, with sufficient paper and staff, after the war. The next editions published by UK publishing houses other than GA&U included the Penguin edition (1961) and the Folio edition (1968), well over a decade later.

4.1.4

Monkey Became a Penguin Classic

When Glover from Penguin re-proposed a Penguin edition of Monkey in 1958, some years had passed since his first proposal. Unlike the first time, when Glover received only a polite reply from Unwin that there might be a possibility “some day” (Glover to Unwin, 25 July 1958, UoR AUC 809/17), this time Unwin agreed to consider an offer from Penguin (Unwin to Glover, 30 July 1958, UoR AUC 809/17). The two parties then proceeded to make and accept an offer and draft, revise and sign an agreement. One notable fact was that, when making the offer, Glover told Unwin that they were not certain whether to include Monkey in the ordinary Penguin series

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or in the Penguin Classics (Glover to Unwin, 9 September 1958, UoR AUC 809/17). Unwin, when accepting the offer, advised “rather strongly” that Monkey “should be” a Penguin Classic (Unwin to Glover, 12 September 1958, UoR AUC 809/17). Although the succeeding correspondence between Penguin and GA&U did not record any information relating to this issue, Monkey was eventually issued as a Penguin Classic in 1961.

4.1.5

The Folio (Deluxe Illustrated) Edition

In 1966, the Folio Society was preparing a deluxe edition of Monkey and planning to add illustrations by Grant. According to the few letters preserved in the Records between Unwin and Brian Rawson from the Folio Society, the production of the Folio edition was distinctive in the following aspects. Firstly, since it was a deluxe illustrated edition, the company needed to arrange to work with the illustrator. Rawson indicated that their negotiation with Grant was not easy, being “considerably longer than anticipated” (Rawson to Unwin, 24 June 1966, UoR AUC 1110/1), though Waley’s translation text was ready to use and their arrangement with GA&U was quick and smooth. The production of the Folio edition was conducted within the Folio Society, and relevant documents were not included in the GA&U Record.4 In view of the production history of the GA&U edition, the production of the Folio edition, in particular the printing of the book covers and the illustrations, would be expected to be arduous and complicated, much more so compared to printing the main text of the translation which was readily available. Another interesting point was that the two parties agreed to treat their correspondence as a ready contract instead of making a new one (Rawson and Unwin, 24 & 29 June 1966, UoR AUC 1110/1). The letters therefore functioned as formal and legally binding agreement. The Folio edition was finally published in 1968.

4.2 Monkey in the US As has been discussed in Sect. 3.1 “Monkey in the UK”, the war-induced shortage of paper and staff within GA&U lowered its publishing capacity, which can explain the relatively small number of copies printed for each impression and the constant reprinting, and also the hardships in re-stocking the 4th impression. This may be another reason why the publisher gave RU the rights to publish an RU edition, besides the explicit reasons as stated in his letter to Waley (as previously discussed; see also 21 September 1943, UoR AUC 181/1). During the war, a large portion of Monkey’s UK domestic market share was attributed to the RU, which developed their own publication schedule during the war to coordinate resources available (see Baker to Unwin, 1 September 1943, UoR AUC 176/10). 4

The same also applies to all versions except for the GA&U edition and its reprints.

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Nonetheless, the war not only reduced the domestic market share of the GA&U edition, but also interrupted the export of Monkey to the US. Before the war, the publisher’s usual practice was to produce copies of their own versions of books and export them to an American company for sale, as can be inferred from Johns (1988). During the war, however, the copies GA&U were able to produce were far from being sufficient for even the UK domestic market, let alone the US market. Even though enough books could be produced, their transport was extremely difficult and costly amidst bombing and enemy actions. Selling the rights to produce Monkey to a US counterpart became a more cost-effective option for the UK publisher.

4.2.1

The John Day (JD) Edition

Unwin never took the initiative in looking for any UK counterparts for the production of UK editions of Monkey—it was Baker from the RU who approached Unwin, requesting a production license. The situation was totally different in the case of the US market. While a prize-wining translation with good sales record and positive comments, it was nonetheless not as attractive to the US counterparts as it was to the UK publishers. Unwin had been repeatedly making offers but had received successive refusals. This process was long and discouraging. Unwin, who was at first surprised to find the American publishers “desperately timid” and “jittery” during the war (Unwin to Waley, 22 January 1942, UoR AUC 154/4), became “speechless” (Unwin to Waley, 28 September 1942, UoR AUC 154/4) over incessant refusals from US publishers. Fortunately, the persistence of Unwin was rewarded: the American JD edition of Monkey proved to be successful in the following years. In fact, Unwin had begun searching for an American publisher for Monkey much earlier: in January 1942, Waley, having completed proofreading the translation text, enquired of Unwin about the progress of exporting the translation to America (Waley and Unwin, 20 & 22 January 1942, UoR AUC 154/4). That was the first recorded time that they talked about American publishers. At that time, Grant had, not long before, been commissioned for the design task but had not yet finished his design drafts. The original GA&U edition of Monkey was far from being printed. In his reply to Waley, Unwin revealed that he had already offered Monkey to The Macmillan Company, after receiving a rejection from the Houghton Mifflin Company (Unwin to Waley, 22 January 1942, UoR AUC 154/4). Unwin needed to send the translation text to a target publisher in America for review, and correspondence between the UK and the US usually took a month. It can, therefore, be inferred that Unwin started to look for an American publisher soon after if not upon the initiation of the translation project. This process of establishing an export channel took approximately a year and witnessed four successive failures. Eventually, Walsh from the John Day Company, the fifth American publisher to whom Unwin offered Monkey, finally accepted to publish a US edition. When the two sides, i.e. GA&U and JD, were drafting and signing the agreement, JD was meanwhile busy arranging the best form for their edition of the translation. They designed their own cover of the translation using a Chinese traditional figure

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of the Monkey (Walsh to Unwin, 4 Jan 1943, UoR AUC 162/7). They also invited Hu Shih (胡适) to write an introduction and Lin Yutang (林语堂) to provide a commentary (ibid.). Hu, a renowned Chinese thinker, essayist and diplomat, was then the former Ambassador to the US and had been nominated for a Nobel prize for literature not long before in 1939. Lin, on the other hand, was famous in the US for his literary works, in particular My Country and My People, The Importance of Living, and Moment in Peking. Both were influential figures by then. With Hu’s “splendid” (ibid.) introduction in the front pages and Lin’s “enthusiastic” (ibid.) commentary at the back, and also the distinctive image of the Monkey on the cover, Walsh envisaged their edition to be inviting (ibid.).

4.2.2

The John Day Juvenile Illustrated Edition

When making the agreement for the JD edition of Monkey, Walsh expressed his disappointment at not being licensed in the agreement for some subsidiary rights, especially radio and motion picture rights (ibid.). He believed that radio and animation programmes developed from the translation would in turn publicise the translation (ibid.). Fortunately, his disappointment was soon to be alleviated by the publication of a juvenile illustrated edition of Monkey. In August 1943, Walsh wrote to express the interest in producing an illustrated juvenile edition (Walsh to Unwin, 2 August 1943, UoR AUC 162/7). The JD edition was selling quite well in America. According to Walsh, by the end of July, which was only a few months after the publication of the JD edition, the royalty statements had almost reached 5,000 (ibid.). Profitable sales urged Walsh to respond positively towards Hu’s suggestion of a juvenile edition and to make a prompt request to Unwin. This illustrated juvenile edition was very different from the previous edition: only the first seven chapters of the story were included and the references were deleted, while the book would be fully illustrated and newly designed and typeset to cater for juvenile reading (ibid.). Besides the initiator Hu, and the two publishers Unwin and Walsh, these changes to the translation at the least would further involve the translator (for permission), a designer and a typographer, and an illustrator. Moreover, the production of this juvenile edition, like other versions of Monkey and in fact any book, would need sufficient materials such as paper, ink and printing machines, and labour such as printers and binders.

4.2.3

The Grove Edition

More than ten years later, in 1958, a young publishing company, the Grove Press, expressed to JD their interest in publishing a new edition of Monkey. At that time, however, according to the agreement for the JD edition made in 1943 (see Agreement between GA&U and JD for Monkey, UoR AUC 162/7), the rights for publishing the American edition of Monkey had reverted from JD to GA&U as the JD edition was out of print in 1955 (28 Jan 1958, GA&U to JD, UoR AUC 792/14). Under

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such circumstances, GA&U and JD agreed on a new method to cooperate: JD acted as a literary agent to mediate between GA&U and Grove, helping to arrange an agreement and negotiating terms and conditions (see 31 January, 13 February, & 21 March 1958, JD and GA&U, UoR AUC 792/14). In this way, the three parties arranged the authorisation of the Grove edition. According to the last letter available regarding the Grove edition in which an advance book jacket was enclosed (17 June 1958, JD to GA&U, UoR AUC 792/14), the Grove edition had proceeded with an efficient production process.

4.3 Monkey in Europe The selling of licenses for publishing UK editions of Monkey was suspended for more than a decade after World War II, since GA&U must have resumed their production capacity to supply sufficient copies of Monkey for the UK domestic demand. Meanwhile, the American JD edition had also been selling well in the US market. To further disseminate the translation, beyond the UK and the US, the publisher started looking for European publishers who might be interested in printing re-translations of the English translation (Waley’s Monkey). The selling of translation rights of Monkey began to flourish thereafter. Altogether, six re-translations in European languages, including the process of negotiating rights and terms for publishing agreement, were recorded between the 1940s and 1960s in the Records. This was the heyday of Monkey’s expansion into Europe. The European languages into which Monkey was translated included German, Swedish, Dutch, French and Italian. The publishers were based respectively in Switzerland, Sweden, Holland, France and Italy. Besides the Records, Johns (1988) recorded that the first European re-translation was a Cervantes edition in Spanish issued in Spain in 1945. Taking all these re-translations into consideration, Monkey had been expanding into the most spoken European languages (TNS Opinion & Social 2012) by the 1960s. It should be re-emphasised that the Records is the publishing record of GA&U, which only contains information about the publishing activities performed by staff from GA&U. More specifically, the files only record the whole process of production of the GA&U Monkey and from the perspective of GA&U, whereas, for editions other than the GA&U Monkey, i.e. the American, the European and the Indian editions of Monkey, only correspondence concerning the arrangement of rights, contracts and payments made between GA&U and its partner publishing houses is available in the Records. For most of the time, in order to promote the translation or to interest the European publishers, GA&U had to target and then make proposals to appropriate European publishing companies. The target companies might want to evaluate the book before deciding whether to accept it or not. For example, GA&U waited for about one month before Uitgeverij Contact (UC) from Holland decided to accept the book, according to a positive report from their literary advisor (see 6 & 27 January 1947,

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UC to GA&U, UoR AUC 294/14). In another case, GA&U was kept waiting for more than half a year for its proposal to Giulio Einaudi [GE] for a GE re-translation, which almost made GA&U abandon the proposal (see 14 January, 21 & 27 July 1953, GA&U and GE, UoR AUC 590/4). Only when European publishing companies expressed their interest in Monkey and requested terms and conditions for publication did GA&U then offer the payments and royalties for publishing Monkey in a letter. Enclosed in each letter was a contract for the European publishers’ signature if they considered the offer acceptable. Under normal circumstances, the payments and royalties for European editions were almost the same (e.g. 31 January 1947, GA&U to UC, UoR AUC 294/14 & 27 July 1953, GA&U to GE, UoR AUC 590/4) but were much lower than those for the American edition (cf. Agreement between GA&U and JD for Monkey, UoR AUC 162/7). This might be because the European companies had to re-translate Monkey into other European languages by themselves, which made production more costly than the American edition. After signing the contract, the European publishers made payments, produced their own editions (re-translations) and sent copies of their edition to the publisher, who then forwarded several copies to the translator. Like all the other editions except their own, GA&U was not responsible for the quality of re-translations or their production processes. The majority of the production work, e.g. retranslating, designing, printing, binding and marketing, was conducted entirely and independently by, and within, the European publishing houses.

4.4 Monkey in India In March 1947, Kusum Nair, the managing director of the National Information and Publications Limited (NIP) from India, approached GA&U, requesting the rights to publish Monkey in English and Indian languages (Nair to GA&U, 3 April 1947, UoR AUC 313/14). This was probably the first instance of cooperation between the two companies, because Nair briefly introduced NIP in the first lines of the letter, and an information folder of NIP was enclosed (ibid.). GA&U was interested in getting a partner company in India and kindly offered NIP free Indian language rights for Monkey (GA&U to Nair, 17 April 1947, UoR AUC 313/14). As for payments, GA&U proposed three plans from which NIP could choose: (1) a one-off payment for all Indian editions in any Indian vernacular language; (2) an advance payment for every thousand copies; or (3) pay by royalties which GA&U needed to decide according to the publishing plan of NIP (ibid.). The rights for Indian editions in English were not permitted, however, as GA&U rarely granted English rights to other publishers aside from their American partner companies (ibid.). Some recent publication lists of GA&U were also sent to NIP in case the latter might find some titles interesting (ibid.). Nair chose the first payment plan and tried to bargain with GA&U for a lower royalty, showing doubt about the market size and possible sales of Monkey in Indian

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vernacular languages (Nair to GA&U, 29 April 1947, UoR AUC 313/14). GA&U, on the other hand, refused to reduce the price, which was in their opinion appropriate for “this most successful book” (GA&U to Nair, 10 May 1947, UoR AUC 313/14). The two parties then signed an agreement based on GA&U’s view, and two copies of Monkey were sent to India for translation use at the request of Nair (GA&U to Nair, 18 June 1947, UoR AUC 313/14). Correspondence between the two parties is not found after August 1947 when NIP confirmed receipt of the signed agreement by airmail from GA&U (Nair to GA&U, 7 August 1947, UoR AUC 313/14). The production of the Indian edition of Monkey in vernacular languages had, however, just begun. Just like GA&U and the European publishers of Monkey’s re-translations, NIP would have to conduct a long production process of (re)translation(s), before being able to distribute their version(s) in India.

5 Conclusion As an English translation of a Chinese literary classic, Monkey is unique not only in its content and form but also in its means of production and circulation. The translation text (content) differs from previous translations of Journey mainly due to the creative strategies Waley used in translation. The form (appearance) of the translation stood out among wartime books as it was deliberately designed and typeset. The prolonged process of designing the cover pages is a typical example showing how translation production was negatively affected by material and technological conditions of that particular time. It was challenging for the designer Grant to work according to the publisher’s requirements, within the time limit, and under material constraints caused by World War II. The printing of the jacket design was, moreover, a difficult task because of technical problems, which further caused disputes on whether the design could be simplified. Many human translation agents contributed to the production and dissemination of the translation, including the translator Waley, the publisher S. Unwin, the designer Grant, the typographer D. Unwin, the American, European and Indian publishers, the (re)translators, the illustrators, and the mass of anonymous printers, binders, distributors, literary critics and many more. Among them, the translator Waley and the publisher Unwin can be considered the most active participants as evidenced in the Records. Translating occupied only a small period of the translation production process, and not only did the task of the translator involve translating, but the translator also simultaneously acted in various roles at different stages of production, including proof reader, assistant (e.g., helping to recruit the designer at the request of the publisher) and advisor (e.g., commenting on the design of the book). In this way, the translator was involved not just in the translation of the text but also in the entire process of translation production, changing the development of this process and helping to shape the final look of the translation. While publisher agency in translation has not often been seriously studied, this present research finds that the publisher was crucial to translation. The publisher led

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the production of Monkey throughout, initiating the translation project, problematising important issues to be addressed in terms of practical publishing conditions, and assembling and distributing resources (e.g., paper, ink, machines and staff) to the site of production. It should be noted that the translation (Monkey, the GA&U original edition) was produced during World War II, when book publishing was much more difficult than in normal times. During publication, the publisher had to fight for paper supply and mediate over the limited resources, which grew especially prominent when prioritising the 4th impression of Monkey among multiple lines of production. Importantly, the publisher was also the greatest contributor to Monkey’s spread through the West, i.e. to the US and many countries in Europe and south Asia. It is true that Monkey was translated from a literary classic by a renowned and sophisticated Sinologist and translator, and was itself an exotic, humorous and attractive work, which possessed all the necessary factors to become popular. These favourable factors were, however, inert and hidden in the translation text and among numerous books published in the same period. The publisher exerted much effort to bring Monkey to the fore. Creating eye-catching covers and typesetting, and arranging publicity campaigns for the translation (see Luo 2020) were the publisher’s methods for promoting Monkey in the UK. For a wider dissemination of the translation beyond the UK border, the publisher needed to interest foreign publishing companies to print Monkey in their countries (or to export the book, which was, however, almost impossible during the war). The publisher started searching for and recommending Monkey to foreign publishers very early on, which was definitely one of the most important and lasting tasks of the publisher. This began upon the initiation of the production process, in 1941 or 1942, and continued for decades until the end of the Records in the 1960s. On a few occasions, a foreign publisher who had heard about Monkey would request its publishing rights. The majority of foreign publishers, however, did not know about Monkey at that time. The publisher approached many foreign publishing companies, some of which refused Monkey, and some of which doubted the commercial prospects for it. The publisher offered Monkey and, if refused, targeted another company and re-offered it, managed to raise offerees’ interest, waited for decisions, explained payments, negotiated terms and conditions, and drafted and signed contracts. In this way, the publisher established many channels to spread Monkey outside the UK, and therefore, the publisher agency acted as the major impetus for Monkey’s “journey to the West”. Acknowledgements This research is supported by the postdoctoral scheme of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and the Project of Technology Consulting Expert, Shanxi Province (山西省科技咨询专家项目).

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References Bogic, A. 2010. Uncovering the Hidden Actors with the Help of Latour: The ‘Making’ of The Second Sex. MonTI. Monografías de Traducción e Interpretación, Sin mes, 173–192. Cai, T. 1990. 关于百回本《西游记》作者之争的思考与辩证 [Thoughts and Arguments on the Author of Journey to the West]. Journal of Ming-Qing Fiction Studies Z1: 319–332. ———. 2007.《西游记的诞生》 [The Origins of Journey to the West]. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. ———. 2010.《西遊記》資料彙編 [A Compilation of Xi You Ji Materials]. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. Callon, M. 1986. Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation Domestication of the Scallops and the Fishermen of St Brieux Bay. In Power, Action and Belief: A New Sociology of Knowledge? ed. J. Law, 196–233. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Books. Cao, B. 2010.《西游记》现存版本系统叙录 (A Systematic Study on the Existent Versions of Journey to the West) Journal of Huaihai Institute of Technology (Humanities & Social Sciences Edition) 8 (10):16–21. Chen, Q. 2007. 四大名著版本知多少 (The Editions of the Four Chinese Classics). 中国图书商报 (China Book Business Report), Beijing, 21 December 11. He, M., and S. He. 2016.《西游记》 的漫漫‘西游’路 (Xi You Ji’s Long ‘Journey to the West’). 中国作家网 (China Writers Net), 19 May. Available at: http://www.chinawriter.com.cn/wxpl/ 2016/2016-05-19/272630.html [Accessed: 22 March 2021] Holman, V. 2008. Print for Victory: Book Publishing in Britain 1939–1945. London: British Library. Hu, S. 1994. Introduction to the American Edition. In C. Wu Monkey: Folk Novel of China, trans. Waley, A.D., 1–5. New York: Grove Press. Jia, N. 2012.《大话西游》 与《悟空传》 视角下的《西游记》(Journey to the West in ‘a Chinese Odyssey’ and ‘a Legend of Wukong’). 文教资料 (Data of Culture and Education) 33: 89–91. Johns, F.A. 1988. A Bibliography of Arthur Waley, 2nd ed. London: The Athlone Press. Latour, B. 1987. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 2007. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. New York: Oxford University Press. Li, X. 2006. 孙悟空形象在明末清初续作中之演变 [The Evolution of the Image of the Monkey in the Sequels to Journey to the West in the Late Ming Dynasty and the Early Qing Dynasty]. Journal of Ming-Qing Fiction Studies 4: 174–184. Li, R. 2014. Studies on Chinese-English Translation of Proper Name of Journey to the West from the Perspective of Text World Theory. PhD thesis, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai. Liu, Y. 1984. 一部传神的译作——简评亚瑟•威利的 《猴子》 [A Vivid Translation: A Brief Review on Arthur Waley’s Monkey]. Chinese Translators Journal 3 (3): 41. Luo, W. 2020. Translation as Actor-Networking: Actors, Agencies, and Networks in the Making of Arthur Waley’s English Translation of the Chinese ‘Journey to the West’. New York: Routledge. Morgan, G. 1974. Monkey (Book Review). Asian Affairs 5 (2): 220. Perlmutter, R. 1971. Arthur Waley and His Place in the Modern Movement Between the Two Wars. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. Priest, A. 1943. Monkey (Book Review). Far Eastern Survey 12 (13): 134. Records of George Allen and Unwin Ltd (UoR AUC), Manuscript Number: MS 3282, University of Reading, Special Collections, Reading. Stefan, S. 2020. A Tale of Two Translations: Arthur Waley’s and Anthony C. Yu’s Journeys to the West. MA thesis, Nankai University, Tianjin. TNS Opinion & Social. 2012. Europeans and Their Languages. Special eurobarometer 386, European Commission. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/archives/ ebs/ebs_386_en.pdf [Accessed: 18 March 2021] Turner, W. J. 1942. Monkey (Book Review). The Spectator 169 (5953), 31 July, 109.

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Unwin, S. 1960. The Truth About a Publisher: An Autobiographical Record. London: George Allen & Unwin. Waley, A. 1994. Preface. In The Way and Its Power: Lao Tzu’s Tao Tê Ching and Its Place in Chinese Thought, trans. T. Lao and A. Waley. New York: Grove Press. Wang, L. 1980.《西游记》外文译本概述 [An Overview of the Translations of Xi You Ji]. The Documentation 4: 64–78. ———. 1999. 《西游记》在海外 (Journey to the West Overseas). 古典文学知识/The Knowledge of Classical Literature 4: 117–126. Wang, W., and Y. Li. 2018. A Study on Arthur Waley’s Alteration and Simplification of Xiyouji (Journey to the West). Journal of Zhejiang International Studies University 1: 68–73. Wang, X. 2004. 中国小说续书的历史发展 (The Historical Development of Sequels of Chinese Novels). PhD Thesis, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai. Wong, L. K. P. 2013. Seeking the Golden Mean: Arthur Waley’s English Translation of the Xi You Ji. Babel, 59 (3): 360–380. Wu, C. 1994. Monkey: Folk Novel of China, trans. Waley, A. D. New York: Grove Press. Wu, S. 2002. 究竟谁是造物主:《西游记》 作者问题综考辨证录 (Who Was the Creator: An Overview of the Existing Thoughts and Analysis on the Author Problem of Journey to the West). Journal of Ming-Qing Fiction Studies 4: 4–28. Yang, S. 2008. Arthur Waley’s Creatively Treasonous Translation of The Journey to the West. MA Thesis, Capital Normal University, Beijing. Yao, X. 2006. 古典名著的电视剧改编 [TV Series Adaptations of Classics]. Beijing: CUCP (Communication University of China Publishing). Yu, A. C. 1977. Preface. In The Journey to the West, trans. C. Wu, A. C. Yu, Vol. 1, ix–xii. London: The University of Chicago Press, Zheng, J., and Y. Wu 2012.《西游记》百年英译的描述性研究 (A Descriptive Study on the Translation History of Journey to the West). Social Sciences in Guangxi 10 (208): 148–153. Zhu, H. 2012. A Study of the Composition of the Journey to the West from the Perspective of Western Literary Theory. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 5: 63–69. Zhu, M.《西游记》域外经典化的过程 (The Canonisation of Journey to the West Overseas). Chinese Social Sciences Net, 14 November. Available at: http://econ.cssn.cn/skjj/skjj_jjgl/skjj_x mcg/201611/t20161114_3274582.shtml [Accessed: 21 March 2021] Zhu, Y., and Y. Liu 1983.《西游记》资料汇编 [A Compilation of Xi You Ji Materials]. 河南 [Henan]: 中州书画社 [Zhongzhou Shuhua Publishing].

Wenyan Luo is Postdoctoral Fellow at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Research Assistant Professor at Lingnan University. Her research interests include sociology of translation, translation history, and translation agents. Her recent academic monograph Translation as ActorNetworking: Actors, Agencies, and Networks in the Making of Arthur Waley’s English Translation of the Chinese “Journey to the West” was published by Routledge in 2020. Binghan Zheng is Distinguished Professor at the School of Foreign Languages, Shanxi University, and Associate Professor of Translation Studies at Durham University. His research interests include cognitive translation and interpreting studies, neuroscience of translation, and comparative translation and interpreting studies. His recent publications appeared in journals such as Target, Across Languages & Cultures, Journal of Pragmatics, Brain & Cognition, Perspectives, LANS-TTS, Babel, Translation & Interpreting Studies, Foreign Language Teaching & Research, and Journal of Foreign Languages. He is a guest editor of journals including Translation Studies, Translation & Interpreting Studies and Foreign Language Teaching & Research.

French Translations of the Chinese Vernacular Erotic Novel of the Ming and Qing Dynasties: A Brief Overview Pierre Kaser

Abstract Having a long and rich tradition of its own in this literary genre, France can be proud to provide the French reading public with a rather broad selection of erotic literature that found an audience in China—as well as further afield, particularly in Japan—during the final two dynasties (Ming and Qing). These texts have survived in spite of being the targets of waves of proscriptions from very early on in their history. Between the early 1960s and the beginning of the twenty-first century, at least twenty works have been made available to a French audience, at first, rather clumsily, but as time went on, with more relevance and efficiency. This overview adopts a historical approach, as well as conducting a critical inventory of the translations of this type of literature, from the first attempts to translate Jin Ping Mei into French, to the latest publications that include the best editions of this corpus (namely the “Siwuxie huibao” 思無邪匯寶 series, edited by Chan Hing-ho 陳慶浩 in Taiwan). It also casts a critical eye over the way in which the various agents involved in this venture (sinologists, translators, and editors) have conceived of their work. Keywords Ming-Qing Chinese novel · Erotic literature · French translation · Jin Ping Mei · Siwuxie huibao Although the fruit of the literary imagination should not be confused with the product of a sociological investigation, we have long been aware of the benefits of reading novels in order to penetrate a little deeper into the heart of a society. To be convinced of this, we need only reread the answer given by the Marquis de Sade (1740–1814)— whose novel writing style was utterly ferocious—to the question “What is the point of novels?”. What is their point? You crabbed hypocrites — for only you ask this absurd question. Their point is to portray you as you are, individuals puffed up with vanity who would like to escape the attention of the artist’s brush because you fear the consequences. The novel, if I may express it so, is ‘the picture of the manners of every age’. To the philosopher who seeks to know the nature of man, it is as indispensable as history. The historian’s pencil can draw a P. Kaser (B) IrAsia Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, IrAsia, Marseille, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Qi and S. Tobias (eds.), Encountering China’s Past, New Frontiers in Translation Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0648-0_7

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man only in his public roles, when he is not truly himself: ambition and pride cover his face with a mask which shows only these two passions and not the man entire. The novelist’s pen, on the other hand, captures his inner truth and catches him when he puts his mask aside, and the resulting sketch, which is far more interesting, is also much truer: that is the point of novels. Frigid censors all, who do not care for them, you are like the legless cripple who said: ‘what is the point of portraits?’1

Notwithstanding the fact that during the final two Chinese imperial dynasties, Ming 明 (1368–1644) and Qing 清 (1644–1911), the genre was disdained at the height of its popularity, and despite waves of increasingly extensive proscriptions, we have fortunately been able to preserve an impressive heritage.2 This monumental corpus includes more than a thousand titles, including quite a few short story collections, some of which are very extensive. However, only a tiny fraction has made its way to the West since the beginning of the eighteenth century—about sixty titles in all, most of which have been only very partially or imperfectly rendered. The history of this transfer is now relatively well-known, featuring a collection of vernacular short stories, Jingu qiguan 今古奇觀3 (Remarkable Stories New and Old), and a handful of novels, including what Paul Demiéville (1966, 56–110)4 called “romans à l’eau de rose” (romance novels), and a few major masterpieces. There is one area that has partly escaped the attention of historians of the reception of the Chinese novel in France: that of novels labeled—rightly or wrongly—as licentious, erotic, or even pornographic. I will not settle the debate on the delimitation of these terms, but will try to avoid it altogether by including any title that relates more or less to the narration of human passions in their physical outbursts or fulfillment; in a word, narrative texts in vernacular language that describe, with more or less detail, sexual intercourse.5 Besides, this was a sufficient criterion for a novel’s title to be included 1

Sade (1799, 36–37). English translation by David Coward (Sade 2005, 14). Some idea of this can be gained by scanning an inventory such as the nearly 1,400 pages Zhongguo tongsu xiaoshuo zhonghu tiyao 中國通俗小說總目提要 (Zhongguo wenlian 1991). An earlier text, by Wang Liqi 王利器 (1912–1998) (Wang 1957) details the manner in which the censors went about stemming the tide of novels and operas deemed dangerous. 3 The anthology of forty stories is now accessible in its entirety thanks to Rainier Lanselle’s masterly translation: Spectacles curieux d’aujourd’hui et d’autrefois (Jingu qiguan) (1996). On the reception of this collection, see Huang Chunli黃春麗 (2015). 4 On the reception of these caizi jiaren xiaoshuo 才子佳人小說, held in low regard by modern critics, see in particular Postel (2013). 5 Thus, I will not include a story from Jingu qiguan that, although it provides a lot of insight into the world of prostitution, does not contain any erotic excesses. It is probably the best known of the collection, at least since Gustave Schlegel (1840–1903) translated it into French as Mai Yu Lang Tou tchen hoa koueï, Le vendeur d’huile qui seul possède la Reine-de-beauté ou Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes chinoises (Maiyou lang du zhan Huagui 賣油郎獨占花魁. The Oil Vendor who Alone Possesses the Queen of Beauty or Splendors and Miseries of Chinese Courtesans) (1877). He furnished his translation with a long commentary in which he insisted on the informative value of the text: “The novels serve, better than the most detailed description could do, to acquaint the reader with the social mores of the Chinese people during different periods in history. For, it must be confessed, and we know this from experience, although one may reside for several years in China, one never enters the sanctuary of the family. Even if one is admitted, which sometimes happened to us during our excursions into the interior, one sees only the surface; one does not live with 2

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on a proscription list, such as the one dated May 17, 1714, which Liu Tingji 劉廷璣 defended (despite being an attentive reader of these works, which according to him, required particular reading skills). The imperial decree states: Noting that many shops were trading in licentious novels of extravagant vulgarity, and thus disturbing the moral order by seducing the ignorant masses and infecting with their poison even the children of our most venerable servants who cannot refrain from feasting their eyes on them, it was decided to rigorously prohibit their circulation.6

1 Descent into Chinese Literary Hell Knowledge of this genre of Chinese literary texts was for a long time confined to the only conclusive study available in French on the subject: namely, Sexual Life in Ancient China by the great Dutch sinologist Robert Van Gulik (1910–1967).7 The subsequent initiatives aiming to shed light on this important part of Chinese culture did not greatly enlarge the picture. However, with its long and rich tradition in this literary genre, France can be proud to provide the French reading public with a rather broad selection of erotic literature that found an audience in China—as well as further afield, particularly in Japan—during the final two dynasties, thereby enabling it to survive the vagaries of history. the actors, and one never gets a glimpse behind the curtain.” I will also leave aside all the stories which—although they include situations verging on indecent—steer clear of crude descriptions. This includes the stories of Li Yu 李漁 (1611–1680) to which I have nevertheless devoted some of my attention by translating five of his Wushengxi 無聲戲 (Silent Operas) in Li ([1990] 1998). Even so, the publisher is determined to include him in their catalog of erotic writings: http://www.edi tions-picquier.com/thematique/erotique/. The fact remains that the precautions taken by the authors never precluded their works from being censored. 6 Liu, Zaiyuan zazhi 在園雜誌 ([1957] 1981, 229–232): 近見坊肆間多賣小說淫詞 。荒唐鄙俚。瀆亂正理。不但誘惑愚民。即縉紳子 弟未免游目而蠱心焉。敗俗傷風所繫非細 。應即通行嚴禁。Translated by Kaser (2016). 7 Sexual Life in Ancient China. A Preliminary Survey of Chinese Sex and Society from ca. 1500 B.C. till 1644 A.D. (1961) was translated into French by Évrard (Van Gulik 1971) and published by Éditions Gallimard in its prestigious “Bibliothèque des histoires” series. Some less ambitious works were also translated into French in the wake of this publication: in 1973, Le Ying-Yang ou l’Art d’aimer en Chine (The Ying-Yang. The Chinese Way of Love) by Humana and Wu, translated from English by Vauthier (Humanna and Wu 1973); in 1974, Les jeux de l’amour en Chine was the translation of The Dragon and the Phoenix (1971) by Chou (1974), and in 1977, the translation of The Tao of Love and Sex by Chang (1977), got a funny title: Le Tao de l’Art d’aimer. Le Kâma-Sûtra de la Chine. Other works on the subject adopt a pictorial approach, and naturally evoke the texts which were the inspiration for the series of illustrations. This includes the exhibition catalogue Le Palais du printemps. Peintures érotiques de Chine (The Spring Palace. Erotic Paintings from China), which opens with a relevant study by Lévy (2006, 11–27), and Rêves de printemps. L’Art érotique en Chine (Rev, 1998), a French adaptation of the collective work Dreams of Spring. Erotic Art in China. Bertholet Collection (Rev, 1997), last but not least, Les Jardins du plaisir. Érotisme et art dans la Chine ancienne (The Gardens of Pleasure. Eroticism and Art in Ancient China) by Bertholet and Pimpaneau ([2003] 2015), author of “De l’érotisme en Chine ancienne” (Eroticism in Ancient China) (10–104). It should be noted that Éditions Picquier will draw unreservedly from this corpus to illustrate the covers of the translations of the books discussed below.

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Between the early 1960s and the beginning of the twenty-first century, at least twenty works have been made available to a French audience, at first, rather clumsily, but as time went on, with more relevance and efficiency. The discovery of this corpus rests, in fine, on a relatively small number of people. Some, however, have played a particularly important part. One such person is René Étiemble (1909–2002)8 who, in his role as the erudite editor enamored with world literature, was instrumental in the discovery of the most remarkable title which will be discussed here, Jin Ping Mei.

2 The Slow Discovery of Jin Ping Mei Although I agree with Zhang Zhupo 張竹坡 (1670–1698), the main commentator on Jin Ping Mei 金瓶梅, that it is much more than simply a lewd work, it would be remiss not to mention it here. This novel automatically springs to mind when you think of Chinese erotic literature, for it was indeed its reputation as a text going beyond the bounds of propriety that drew it to the attention of the earliest French sinologists.9 Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat (1788–1832), the founding father of French sinology, makes a passing reference to it in terms that arouse curiosity: “Kin-p’hing meï [is a] famous novel, which is said to be above, or rather below, all that corrupt Rome and modern Europe have produced that is most licentious”.10 When undertaking the translation of passages from Shuihuzhuan 水滸傳 (Water Margins), including one shared with Jin Ping Mei, Antoine Bazin (1799–1863) also had the latter in mind when he wrote that he wanted to show “that one could, without sinning against propriety, translate a few pages of the Kin-p’ing-meï into our language” (Bazin 1853, 545).11 It was in 1862 that Léon d’Hervey-Saint-Denys (1822–1892) expressed his desire to devote himself to the translation of this “very famous novel of the last century, of which a few licentious depictions cannot destroy its merit as a portrait of manners”, adding in a note “[that] it abounds in precious details on life behind closed doors in China”, even assuring that he had “translated several chapters, and [would] not abandon [his] efforts to finish this work in order to get it published” (1862, 30, note 1). We have not found these first drafts, the very existence of which is surprising, considering that the translator of a dozen tales from Jingu qiguan 今古奇觀 liked to smooth out all the bumps in texts judged to be too “superficial” or too “Chinese”! As for Maurice Jametel (1856–1889), a somewhat forgotten sinologist—who was nevertheless one of Édouard Chavannes’ (1865–1918) teachers at the École des Langues Orientales (School for Oriental Languages) where he was in charge of a course in modern Chinese—he never missed an opportunity during his short life to 8

See Dars (1993, 65–74). Information concerning the discovery of the novel can be found in a blog post (Kaser [2009] 2015), but also in Li Shiwei’s PhD dissertation (2016). 10 See Abel-Rémusat (1816, 39) note 15. 11 Also see Li (2016, 156–188). 9

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promote this novel, a fine edition of which he had been able to consult in Peking (Jametel 1884, 273–289). He devoted many years to deciphering the language, aware that the tools to do so were sorely lacking: “But the further I progressed, the more I had to lament the disdain with which it had been treated by eighteenth and early nineteenth century scholars. Thus, students in this barely explored area of Sinology must walk adventurously, at the risk of going astray twenty times before finding a path that will surely lead them to the goal they intend to reach”. Nevertheless, he eventually achieved success: “Wearily, I turned to my young scholar, and with his help I managed to make some progress in my study. However, understanding how much I wished to complete the task, he sent to me his brother, an old opium smoker for whom the slang of the viveurs and that of the Chinese vagabonds held no secrets. Thanks to him, I could soon read Kin-ping-mei with as much ease as I used to read those little dime novels hawked in the streets by Chinese peddlers for just under a penny”. The fruit of this research, “L’Argot pékinois et le Kin-Ping-Meï ” (Beijing Slang and Jin Ping Mei), published by Jametel (1888, 65–80) after four years of effort, paved the way for a journey that would only come to an end in 1985. In his Souvenirs d’un collectionneur: la Chine inconnue (Memories of a Collector: Unknown China), a reissue of some of his writings, Jametel attempts for the first time a rather clumsy translation of the title of the masterly work by the man he calls “the Yellow Zola”. Jin Ping Mei thus becomes Le prunier au flacon d’or (The Plum Tree with the Golden Flask) (Jametel 1886).12 But the next phases in the process resulting in a complete translation that does justice to Jin Ping Mei would be as clumsy as they were frustrating. This has as much to do with problems related to accessing a reliable source text, as with the way of approaching and rendering it; in fact, they should be spoken of as sacrilegious adaptations rather than translations. For the first phase, the fault lay entirely with George Soulié de Morant (1878– 1955), whose Lotus-d’Or (Golden Lotus) (1912b) came out almost at the same time as his deplorable Essai sur la littérature chinoise (Essay on Chinese Literature) (1912a). In this essay, he gives the novel the title Misses Kin, P’ing and Mei, labeling it a “licentious novel”—a category that also includes Le Bonze Mèche-de-lampe (The Candlewick Monk), which will be discussed later. This “condensed adaptation”— “loose, abridged and bowdlerized” as André Lévy would later call it—betrays the spirit of the novel as much as its form and makes every possible mistake of which an imposter sure of working undercover can find themselves guilty.13 In spite of undeniable shortcomings, the following phase shows immeasurable progress and, most importantly, allows for an initial encounter with the public, as well as with censorship. From 1949 onwards, the French translation of the German 12

In the fifth chapter of the third part of the book, “La Chine des bouquins” (The China of Books), examines the article published in September 1884, see p. 129 onwards. 13 On Soulié de Morant and his translation, see Li (2016, 187–218). Note that Jin Ping Mei would not be his only victim. In his handling of Xixiangji 西廂記 (The Story of the Western Wing), he went even further with his disregard for the source text, see Soulié de Morant (1928). Lanselle would eventually do justice to Wang Shifu’s genius with Le Pavillon de l’Ouest in Wang (2015).

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version published in 1930 by Franz Kuhn (1884–1961) began to circulate in several formats and under various titles. Kin P’ing Mei ou la merveilleuse histoire de Hsi Men avec ses six femmes (Kin P’ing Mei or The Wonderful Story of Hsi Men with his Six Wives) became Kin p’ing mei ou les Six fleurs du mandarin (Kin p’ing mei or The Six Flowers of the Mandarin) to ensure its distribution. It clearly accentuated the licentious side of the work at the expense of the social commentary, since it was no longer a question of competing with Zola, but rather of providing an appealing product for a public who enjoyed Chinese erotic stories (Porret 1949).14 The illusion of possessing a complete version of Jin Ping Mei in French could not last long. The deception was revealed in 1985 with the admission of Fleur en Fiole d’Or (Flower in a Golden Flask) into the prestigious series named “Bibliothèque de La Pléiade”, published by Éditions Gallimard (Lévy 1985). As early as 1978, and under the influence of Étiemble, the publishing house had already included the translation of Shuihuzhuan by Jacques Dars (1937–2010) (Au Bord de l’eau)15 and, in 1981, Le Rêve dans le pavillon rouge (The Dream in the Red Pavilion), a version of Hongloumeng 紅樓夢 (Cao 1981) translated by Li Zhihua 李治華 (1915–2015) and his wife, who for a time were under the guidance of André d’Hormon (1881–1965).

2.1 Fleur en Fiole d’Or Thanks to Étiemble’s inspired and well-researched preface,16 we have information about the circumstances in which he invited André Lévy (1925–2017)17 to embark on the adventure. It was on January 11, 1974, after Lévy had given a defense of his thèse d’État (advanced doctoral dissertation) on “Le conte en langue vulgaire du XVIIe siècle. Vogue et déclin d’un genre narratif de la littérature chinoise”18 (The Seventeenth Century Vernacular Short Story. Popularity and Decline of a Chinese Literary Narrative Genre). The comparative scholar appealed to the specialist of the ancient Chinese novel in baihua 白話, to “finally do Jin Ping Mei”. The choice could not have been more judicious, for the “qualified translator”—one might even add “passionate translator” (Lévy 1999b, 161–172)—had already translated, for the “Connaissance de l’Orient” (Knowledge of the East) series and in various scholarly journals, more than twenty huaben 話本.19 These he considered to be not only 14

The work would go on to be republished several times, notably in 1952, 1978–1979, as would its abridged version (1962). 15 Shi and Luo (1978). On Dars and his sinological work, see Kaser (2011, 13–25) as well as the special issue of the online journal Impressions d’Extrême-Orient (2014). 16 Lévy (1985, ix–xxxvi). Étiemble will reprint this preface on page 176–208 of his Nouveaux essais de littérature universelle (1992). 17 On André Lévy, his sinological career and work, see Kaser (2018, 9–23) and (25–55) for a bibliography of Lévy’s works. 18 This work of remarkable scope will become a reference work published under the title Le conte en langue vulgaire du XVII e siècle (Lévy, 1981). 19 For his translations before 1985, see Kaser (2018, 50–52).

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sociological documents,20 but also literary works in their own right with a consubstantial link to the oral tradition. A mere nine years later, Fleur en Fiole d’Or was released—this was a translation of the cihua 詞話 version of the novel. Although the choice of title, discussed in the length introduction (pp. xli–xlii), did not convince everybody,21 it nevertheless allowed this Chinese novel to become established in the French literary field—better than a transcription would have done, and more deeply—as Au bord de l’eau did with Shuihuzhuan. In this case, even though André Lévy translates everything—or almost everything22 —with a view to completely maintaining the “conventional structure of oral narration, interspersed with references, and commentary in verse”, he is particularly thorough with the erotic passages, which are rendered with considerable accuracy and finesse. The collection is complemented by a substantial critical apparatus—taking up just under one fifth of the two volumes—which is not quite as large as the one provided by David T. Roy (1933–2016) for the equivalent English translation to which he devoted thirty years of his life. However, the two translations were not aimed at the same audience. André Lévy’s audience will be truly touched when Fleur en Fiole d’Or moves from the deluxe edition series to the “livre de poche” (pocket-sized paperback) format of the “Folio” series (Lévy 2004).23 It is safe to say that Jin Ping Mei, now and for many years to come, will receive recognition in the country of Zola! Compared to this, the translation of a sequel to the best of the “Four Ming Novels” doesn’t hold a candle.

3 Behind the Curtain Gelian huaying 隔簾花影 (c. 1735) (Flower Shadows Behind the Curtain) is a notoriously abridged version of Ding Yaokang’s Xu Jin Ping Mei 續金瓶梅 (1599–1669), the first sequel to Jin Ping Mei and, no doubt, one of the first novels to be identified and banned by the Manchu censors. This was largely due to the descriptions it 20

André Lévy is the instigator of a monumental critical inventory of Chinese vernacular short stories, Inventaire analytique et critique du conte chinois en langue vulgaire (Lévy 1978–2006) of which 5 volumes published between 1978 and 2006 are currently available. They constitute volumes viii-1 à viii-5 of the “Mémoires de l’Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises” series. 21 See Dars (1999, 145–159): “Jinpingmei presents an almost insoluble problem, since the title is based on the names of the characters of the novel. Only André Lévy had the courage to choose a play on words for the title: Fleur en Fiole d’Or, and I’m sure our friendship will survive my saying that ‘fiole’ (flask) is a poor substitute.”. 22 As André Lévy admits in his introduction (p. xl): “Between the Charybdis of the letter which kills and the Scylla of the transposition which drowns, was it not convenient to give priority to the maintenance of the pleasure of reading? Such are the reasons for the few cuts that we have made from chapter XL, in any case less extensive than those of the revised edition of the xviith century, each time specified in a note”. He adds on page lxxii: “The text [is] never opaque, but rarely transparent”. 23 The same series had already welcomed an abridged version of Au bord de l’eau, adapted by Jacques Dars himself, its last thirty chapters cut as Jin Shengtan 金聖嘆 (1610–1661) had wished. See Shi (1997).

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contained of the Jürchen invasion under the Song, descriptions that drew too explicit a parallel to a more recent development, the invasion of the Ming Empire by the Manchus. The unsigned French translation, which appeared in Paris under the title Femmes derrière un voile (Women behind a Veil) at Éditions Calmann-Lévi in 1962 (Kuhn 1962), is a rather dull translation of the German version of the novel that was freely adapted by Franz Kuhn in 1956 (Kuhn 1956). A brief foreword, also unsigned, invites the reader to consider it as primarily a political novel, a “novel of retribution”, but assures that it is nonetheless “closely related to the tradition of erotic themes”. It then glosses over Chinese sexual techniques, devoting an unconvincing paragraph to coitus reservatus and what is described as the “Taoist erotic tradition”, ending this brief summary with a conclusion of dubious comparatism: “Secularized, this eroticism nonetheless retained the imprint of ancient obsessions, similar to how in the West, eroticism continues to reflect the fear of hell”. The translation itself is not accompanied by any notes and it struggles to sustain the attention of readers, among whom one would expect to find those who had previously devoured Jean-Pierre Porret’s 1949 French translation of the abridged version of Kuhn’s Jin Ping Mei. We have been able to discover more about the sequels to Jin Ping Mei, including their editing and style, thanks to Vincent Durand-Dastès (2016), who examined the work of Ding Yaokang in a recent article full of translated passages. This is a far cry from the style of Kuhn who, at the end of his long and rich career as a passeur, also translated Rouputuan 肉蒲團.24 His heavily reworked version of this masterpiece of the genre—Kuhn moved the first chapter to the end of the volume in addition to his usual adjustments—had been available since 1959. It was not long before it took its turn serving as the sole source for a French translation intended to satisfy the nascent French curiosity for Chinese erotica.

4 The Adversities Faced by a Masterpiece of Chinese Erotic Fiction 4.1 La chair comme tapis de prière (Flesh as a prayer mat) It is perhaps no coincidence that the same year that this unsatisfactory sequel to Jin Ping Mei was published, the first French translation of Rouputuan was released in France. Here again, it is a question of a choice made by a publisher, in this case JeanJacques Pauvert (1926–2014). Pauvert’s eponymous publishing house, founded in 1947, had already published many sensitive and erotic works—including the Marquis de Sade, who at that time was still considered scandalous. He was also the author of 24

For an introduction to the book and its author, see my entry in Brulotte and Phillips (2006, 809–813).

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a monumental five-volume Anthologie historique des lectures érotiques (Historical Anthology of Erotic Readings) (1995–1996), and, until his death, he was committed to uncovering bold and inaccessible works. It is therefore not surprising that he was interested in the seminal novel of this Chinese literary genre. He asked Étiemble—whose decisive role in the diffusion of ancient Chinese literature and Jin Ping Mei has already been discussed—to provide this new opus with an inspired preface. An attentive reader of everything relating to China, Étiemble wrote a critical overview of the knowledge that existed at that time in France of the ancient Chinese novel, identifying several causes of its lack of visibility: the shortage of experts capable of translating it, but also the cost of the translations which, according to him, would have to be carried out “in pairs, a Chinese and a Frenchman, both knowing the two languages equally well”. He expressed delight that the publisher Jean-Jacques Pauvert had taken “the risk of putting together a version of Jeou p’ou-t’ouan” and explained the origin of the translation: “Kuhn […] had translated this story into German; Pierre Klossowski [(1905–2001)]—who was initially in charge of producing the French version of the story—asked a young French sinologist for advice who, as chance would have it, had in his possession the original version of Jeou p’ou-t’ouan. He was thus able to discern that Franz Kuhn had rendered the meaning of the Chinese text reasonably well, but had embellished it and thus distorted the tone. Pauvert decided to commission from this sinologist a new word-for-word translation, to which Klossowski could then apply his talents. This method recalls that of André Gide, who collaborated with Jacques Schiffrin not so long ago to restore Pushkin to us (Étiemble 1962, p. II)”. We have long wondered who this young sinologist was, but it now seems certain that it was Jacques Pimpaneau (1934–2021).25 In any case, we have confirmation that a sinologist did indeed take part because a foreword states that “the translation of this novel was based on the original Chinese edition mentioned in Souen K’ai-ti’s Catalogue of Chinese Folk Novels”, which corresponds to Sun Kaidi’s 孫楷第 (1898– 1989) Zhongguo tongsu xiaoshuo shumu 中國通俗小說書目 (1933). The translation is also advertised as “complete”, but with the caveat that “only the verses that open each chapter have been omitted. Including poems at the beginning of chapters is common to all Chinese novels, a practice originating from storytellers who used this as a means to gather and entice their listeners. They have no poetic value and are simply part of novelistic conventions”. In addition to this somewhat detrimental limitation, it is another translation choice that distinguishes this translation from all those that preceded it. Indeed, some terms—like those designating sexual organs—are sometimes rendered with two pairs of Chinese characters: yangwu 陽物 for the male sex and yinhu 陰戶 for the female sex. A justification will later be provided by Jacques Pimpaneau who, in his Anthology of Classical Chinese Literature (2004), explains: 25

In a recent interview published in Causeur magazine (2015), Jacques Pimpaneau’s former student at INALCO, René Vienet confirms this hypothesis by stating that “Along [with his classes], Jacques Pimpaneau had just translated La Chair comme tapis de prière, Li Yu’s superb erotic classic, published by Pauvert”.

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“At the time when this translation was published, certain crude words like ‘cock’ would result in a ban on displaying the book or selling it to minors. It would have to be kept under lock and key and sold only upon specific request; hence, to avoid censorship, the publisher had the idea to replace the two direct words for the male and female sex with the corresponding Chinese characters”.26 There are different ways we can judge this method, described by André Lévy as “the lowest form of translation” (Lévy 1999b, 164–165), but it should be pointed out that it has the disadvantage of diminishing the text’s expressive richness. Terms such as benqian 本錢, for example, can easily be rendered by a very explicit “capital” without risking being blacklisted (Kaser 2010, 151–154). As for the attribution of the work to Li Yu 李漁 (1611–1680), a final note of about ten pages—anonymous but undoubtedly written by Jacques Pimpaneau—does not debate it but merely provides a casual analysis of the work and a brief biography based on the information available at the time. In spite of the legitimate reservations that we may have in the present day about this work, on the whole it is an acceptable translation, and Pierre Klossowski has succeeded in maintaining the dynamism of the original work. La Chair comme tapis de prière was very well-received and numerous editions were printed in different formats, including deluxe editions with illustrations, as well as paperbacks.27 If you consider the fact that translations age, or even “expire”, and therefore must be replaced, a new version should at least erase the memory of its predecessor. This would not be the case with the second French translation of Rouputuan. Despite its undeniable public success, it did not manage to definitively supplant the previous version—which, despite its collaborative creation, still had room for improvement— and for good reason.

4.2 De la Chair à l’extase (From Flesh to Ecstasy) In 1990, De la chair à l’extase was published by Éditions Philippe Picquier, a publishing house based in Arles and specializing in Asian literature since it was founded in Paris in 1986. At the time of its publication, it was impossible not to compare it to the earlier version published some 30 years before. This was all the more legitimate a comparison to make considering that they were both commissioned by publishers. It is regrettable that the second version did not go further than was possible at the time of its production. This deficit is evident both when reading the critical apparatus and assessing the style of the translation. The introduction demonstrates that the translator, Christine Corniot, had a lack of knowledge of the genre and, above all, insufficient mastery of Li Yu’s works and his writing style. Li Yu was at the time the subject of numerous works, including Patrick He reproduces extracts from this translation taken from chapters iii (47–49) and xx (289–291), see Pimpaneau (2004, 906–911). 27 The latest is a paperback edition in the “10/18” series by Éditions Christian Bourgois which was published in 1995 with the series number 2676. 26

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Hanan’s excellent monograph published in 1988.28 At a bare minimum, a consultation of this work would have prevented the occurrence of gross misinterpretations and could have guided the choice of source editions. The same abridged, but unexpurgated, version of the novel that Ch¯usuir¯o Shujin 儔翠樓主人 (whose real name is Suyama Nantô 陶山 南濤) is said to have produced in the very early eighteenth century—which, incidentally, was also used by Franz Kuhn for his own translation— forms the basis of both source editions. In this case, the confidence placed in them has led to particularly inappropriate interpretations of a possible composition of the work in “four seasons”! Nevertheless, the publisher and translator’s collaboration can still be considered a success when judged according to the translation’s horizon of expectation. Indeed, despite all the criticisms that can be made of it, the translation found an audience and was published in numerous editions: one a full-size book with black and white reproductions of a series of paintings inspired by the novel, and another in “livre de poche” format in 1994. However, we are still waiting for a French translation of this masterpiece of the genre that is equal to its author’s virtuosic style,29 and that uses a reliable source text.30 This should also be supported by a critical apparatus worthy of the name and include the end-of-chapter commentaries31 that were translated and presented in 2001 in a collective work, also published by Éditions Philippe Picquier, entitled Comment lire un roman chinois (How to Read a Chinese Novel). Otherwise, one will continue to read the most far-fetched evaluations of Li Yu and his work, like that proposed by José Frèches in his Dictionnaire amoureux de la Chine (An Enthusiast’s Guide to China—part of the French book series “Dictionnaire amoureux de…”, which cover a wide range of topics and are written in the form of essay collections arranged in alphabetical order) (Frèches 2013, 544–549). These haphazard and mostly erroneous assessments cause us to rue the scathing remarks made in 1964 by Étiemble, a connoisseur of Chinese eros (Étiemble 1964, 113–127). As the choice of its title suggests—which is, incidentally, a blatant misunderstanding insofar as it is generally interpreted as an incitement to “sexual ecstasy” and not to Buddhist awakening32 —De la chair à l’extase was released in order to take advantage of an emerging enthusiasm for Chinese erotic novels. This rise in popularity was sparked by the publication, once again by Éditions Philippe Picquier, of three titles: Zhulin yeshi 株林野史 (Kontler 1987), Zhaoyang qushi 昭陽趣史 (Kontler 1990); and Yu Gui Hong 玉閨紅 (Maurey 1990). 28

See Hanan (1988). Note that P. Hanan’s translation of the novel (The Carnal Prayer Mat Rou Putuan) was also published in 1990. It is to date the most complete and certainly the best in any Western language. 29 I modestly paved the way by including a short excerpt from Chapter 17 in Kaser (2015). 30 It now exists and is included in volume 15 of the “Siwuxie huibao” 思無邪匯寶 series (Chen and Wang 1994–1997) which will be discussed again below. 31 This work, conducted by myself along with other colleagues, can be found in Chan and Dars (2001, 179–198). 32 This is suggested, with Li Yu’s characteristic irony, by the alternative title of Juehouchan 覺後禪 with which it has also been widely circulated.

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5 The Chinese Erotic Novel Trend in France Published successively in 1987 and 1990, Belle de candeur (Candor Beauty), a translation of Zhulin yeshi, and Nuages et pluie au Palais des Han (Clouds and Rain at the Han Palace), a translation of Zhaoyang qushi, are the result of serious and diligent work by Christine Kontler, a specialist in the arts and religions of ancient China, particularly Buddhism. Not only did the translator endeavor to render the texts available to her in the most complete manner, but she has also gone to the trouble of providing reliable information on the sexual practices of ancient China which were inspired by Taoist practices of longevity. This is evidenced by glossaries and introductions that also provide an explanation of the political background to the stories. Better still, at the end of the volume she provides a dense set of footnotes, of 10 and 18 pages, respectively. This painstaking approach has the consequence of eliminating the purely entertaining aspects of the very situations which, in fine, justify the existence of this type of work. As we know, these works present translation difficulties that can always be better overcome when one is familiar with the genre. Presumably, Christine Kontler has missed this facet of the works entrusted to her by Éditions Philippe Picquier. The two volumes are also, at least in the earlier editions, decorated with ancient illustrations. The translation of Yu Gui Hong, Rouge au gynécée (Red in the Gynaeca), published in 1990, is a more difficult case. There are several factors not in its favor, including an obvious lack of French proficiency and an overly cavalier attitude toward both the source material and the readers. Although the publisher (Éditions Philippe Picquier), is not exempt from responsibility, serious criticism must also be made of the translator who, signing with the name Martin Maurey, a name that is apparently a pseudonym— as is often the case for the translation of erotic novels—masquerades as a “Canadian expert on Asia, Chair of Sociology at a university in Southeast Asia”. The work itself is fragile, since we have only been able to access it through later editions that only allow for the partial reconstruction of a set of ten chapters. Many passages, especially the final chapters, have substantially deteriorated. The translator confidently claims to have had a version on loan that allowed him to translate the work in its entirety, yet he has added the final two chapters. His conclusions concerning the attribution of the work to the author of Jin Ping Mei are very far-fetched, and his rendering of the text is beyond questionable. Thus, by making unmarked additions and cuts, he produces a text that overindulges in coarseness in an attempt to better render a work of provocative rusticity. In the introduction to his critical edition in the series discussed below, Chan Hing-ho does not hesitate to say that “this translation is not rigorous”, fei yansu zhi fanyi ye 非嚴肅之翻譯也. That is putting it mildly. In 1990, the three titles were combined in a boxed set distributed under the title Three Erotic Novels of the Ming Dynasty. Each title was then reissued in “livre de poche” format with several different covers, making things slightly more difficult for readers. This brings us to the conclusion of the second stage in the discovery of Chinese erotic literature.

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Fortunately, the following stages of this process were to be under better auspices. Appreciation is certainly owed to Éditions Philippe Picquier, but there were also other people involved who were more scrupulous and, more importantly, better informed. Indeed, apart from a few titles, including those translated by André Lévy, all of the works were to benefit from an incomparable contribution to the field: the publication in Taiwan of a rich and methodically prepared series of some forty novels in vernacular Chinese, as well as several in classical Chinese. This series entitled “Siwuxie huibao” 思無邪匯寶 is the work of Wang Ch’iukuei 王秋桂 (Qinghua daxue lishisuo 清華大學歷史所), and above all of Chan Hing-ho (Chen Qinghao) 陳慶浩, a researcher at CNRS, the French National Centre for Scientific Research, who spared no effort in assembling all the existing editions of these rare works from libraries around the world and private collections. These 36 volumes, published in Taiwan between 1994 and 1997, are now an essential source for anyone interested in this corpus.33 Those working in this area in France have certainly made use of its contributions, first and foremost Huang San who co-authored no less than six translations with a collaborator who also worked under a pseudonym, of which he used three: Lionel Epstein, Oreste Rosenthal, and Boorish Awadew.34

6 Huang San’s Version The collaborators’ roles were well-established and respected: Huang San set the text, none other than the “Siwuxie huibao” series, whose development he was no stranger to. Huang San assisted his collaborator, who was responsible for the final editing of the translation, and for a critical apparatus that was consistently of a high standard and well-informed about the work in question. Nothing was left out of the initial paratext either (preface, marginal and end-of-chapter comments, depending on the case); brief notes on the illustrations, which are never lacking, formed part of a set of footnotes (sometimes very long and very well-documented) that serve to enrich the prefaces, which are particularly erudite without being tedious, as they display a sense of humor. Despite the seriousness of the work, the translators, and in particular the one who provided the final translation, did not shy away from creativity. This is all the more readily accepted because it is supported by a great mastery of the French language. But the inventiveness of the execution can sometimes be disconcerting: this is notably the case in the translation of Chipozi zhuan 癡婆子傳 under the title Vie d’une amoureuse (Life of a Lover) (Huang and Epstein 1991, 6–83) which replicated the process used in La Chair comme tapis de prière (Klossowski 1962). This time it is the use of characters that are very explicit in their written form, tu 凸 (salient, protruding, and bulging) and ao 凹 (hollow, concave, and cavity), principally at the 33

Chen and Wang (1994–1997). For an introduction to the series in French, see Kaser (2014). All those co-signed by Huang San are presented as part of a historically complex series called “Bibliothèque asiatique” (Asian Library) 東亞叢書 published by different publishers.

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beginning, between pages 26 and 35. The two characters yin 陰 (female [sex]) and yang 陽 (male [sex]) are also used. These eccentricities in no way hinder the heroine’s journey of sexual discovery, and the French reader is thus finally provided with a translation of a Chinese erotic novel whose eloquence rivals the original. Curiously, the work had attracted the attention of a Sinophile who had translated La folle d’amour. Confession d’une Chinoise du xviiie siècle (The Madwoman of Love. Confession of an eighteenth-century Chinese Woman) no less than forty-two years earlier. Published in 1949 by Siao Editions and illustrated with ten woodcuts by a certain Wang Chao Ki 王紹吉 (1886–?), a painter from Sichuan, this story advertised as adapted and prefaced by Lucie Paul-Margueritte (born in 1886) is attributed to a certain Lo-Mengli.35 Nevertheless, the Chinese novel of the Ming period is recognizable as the work of the woman who had previously adapted several works from Chinese, helped by the man she presents here as a “great scholar”, whom we think we can identify as Tcheng-Loh (Chen Lu 陳籙, 1877–1939). The latter, after studying law in Paris, became Minister Plenipotentiary of China in France between 1920 and 1928, where it seems he settled. In an address “To the reader”, Lucie PaulMargueritte begins by explaining that the work she is introducing is “forbidden in China. Through one of our officials, we were able to obtain this text that Chinese scholars sometimes are able to get printed clandestinely, and in a very small format, so as to be able to conceal it easily. The copy I received was no larger than a cigarette paper booklet. A vice-officer had picked it up, I was told, from the cuff of a mandarin scholar’s sleeve. This work was signed with a pseudonym […], and the style, very classical, was that of a gifted author”. She admits, however, that “the undertaking [of translation] was a delicate one: the narrator complacently dwells on her burning memories, and she does not spare us the admission of any of her weaknesses, but her scabrous confidences are peppered with poems from the good old days, and their timely quotation pleasantly poetizes the meticulously described moment of deviance. And, to keep morality in check, the immoral heroine eventually repents and becomes a hermit, like the devil, in old age. Be that as it may, this work is most unedifying; I have hesitated to publish it, and I believe that if it is worth printing for anybody, it must be kept in the Enfer of the Library [the Enfer of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France]”. Nevertheless, the restrained, affected style of the translation dulls the vigor and boldness of the original. However, with this precious curiosity we have what could well be the first Chinese erotic novel to be translated into French! While this record of an interesting artifact will be of great interest to translation historians, the contemporary reader is likely to prefer the modern version, which also includes the translation of another famous novel in the erotic genre, Ruyi qun zhuan 如意君傳. Having received the same attention from the two collaborators, Ruyi qun zhuan 如意君傳 was translated in all its vulgarity under the title of Biographie du Prince Idoine (Biography of Prince My-Pleasure). Thanks to them, the public was provided with an unfiltered account of the supposed sexual excesses of Empress Wu Zetian 武則天 (624–705). As both novels were quite short, they were collected in one 35

The book was republished in Paris by Éditions You-Feng in 2005. On La folle d’amour and Lucie Paul Margueritte, see Kaser (2014).

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volume under the title Vie d’une amoureuse. Récits érotiques traduits du chinois (Life of a Lover. Erotic Stories Translated from the Chinese) (Huang and Epstein 1991, 85–151). It should be noted that the way in which they were incorporated into the corpus of translated texts stems from a sinological approach, but also a comparative one in relation to the equivalent corpus of the European literary tradition, mainly French and English. In the same vein and with the same attention to detail, four more publications will follow, each revealing a new side of Chinese novelistic creation in this very distinctive genre: in 1992, Sengni niehai 僧尼孽海 (Huang and Blasse 1992); in 1995, Hailing yishi 海陵佚史 (Huang and Rosenthal 1995); in 1997, Lü Tiancheng’s Xiuta yeshi 繡榻野史 (1580–1618), which will become Histoire hétérodoxe d’un lit brodé (Heterodox History of an Embroidered Bed) (Lü 1997), and in 2005, a no less excellent Taohua ying 桃花影, translated under the title of À l’ombre des pêchers en fleur (Under the Shade of the Peach Blossoms) (Huang and Awadew 2005). Each time the “Siwuxie huibao” editions are used, philological seriousness will be guaranteed. The pair of experts will only make an exception to their rule for the Sengni niehai, translated under the title of Moines et nonnes dans l’océan des péchés (Monks and Nuns in the Ocean of Sins). While they translated the part devoted to the nuns’ depravity, another collaborator, using the pseudonym Jean Blasse, translated the monks’ reprehensible excesses into French. Even though the requisite level was maintained, the French translation was slightly inferior compared to the achievements of Huang San’s French version. The duo also published Les Écarts du Prince Hailing (The Deviations of Prince Hailing), the first version in translation of Hailing yishi, at the same time that its Chinese edition was finally restored in Taiwan thanks to the “Siwuxie huibao” series. Certain translation biases, proudly announced by the French translator in their prefaces, will either make people smile or grimace. However, even if they do not improve the intelligibility of the text, they do not detract from the pleasure of reading it. The French public can therefore be grateful to these two pioneers for having succeeded in shining a light on this work. However, there was another person involved in the process whose contribution is no less remarkable.

7 The Pavilion of Curious Bodies and Dependencies This other figure was Jacques Cotin, literary director for the “Bibliothèque de La Pléiade” at Éditions Gallimard between 1988 and 1996. In 1996, he put forward a proposal to Éditions Philippe Picquier to create and oversee the production of a series dedicated to erotic literature from around the world. The series was entitled “Le Pavillon des corps curieux” (The Pavilion of Curious Bodies), and it naturally included Chinese texts of the late imperial period, in particular those of the Ming-Qing transition.

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7.1 Three by One Three of them were translated between 1998 and 2005 by Pierre Kaser, who signed them with the pseudonym Aloïs Tatu. These were Dengcao heshang zhuan 燈草和尚傳, which became Le Moine mèche-de-lampe (The Candlewick Monk) in 1998, Bi Yu Lou 碧玉樓, translated as Le Pavillon des Jades (The Jade Pavilion) in 2003, and Yaohu yanshi 妖狐艷史, translated as Galantes chroniques de renardes en enjôleuses (The Voluptuous History of Fox Demons) in 2005. These three small volumes were dedicated to works that were lesser known and more unconventional than those previously translated by Éditions Philippe Picquier.36 Even though in this case the translator was working alone, the expectations of the “Pavillon des corps curieux” series remained the same: the need to respect the original text and its paratext (preface, commentaries, etc.), and a requirement that the translation be based on the “Siwuxie huibao” editions. However, there were new presentation constraints, in particular the addition of a list of concepts, names and key words encountered in the work and explained in an encyclopedic form at the end of the volume. This procedure has the advantage of having less frequent recourse to footnotes, although there are still some. Of the three texts, the first one seems the most relevant because it ventures into, with more enthusiasm than the other two, the avenues opened up by Rouputuan, and explores a “purely physical” sexuality free of any pathos. Even so, these works do make certain underlying claims, through articulating women’s longing to satisfy their sexual desire the same way that men do, and sometimes strongly denouncing bureaucratic oppression.37

7.2 Le Poisson de jade et l’épingle au phénix (The Jade Fish and the Phoenix Pin) Also to Jacques Cotin’s credit is the fact that he was able to convince a high-profile translator, with whom he was collaborating on the editing of an unabridged translation of Liaozhai zhiyi 聊齋誌異 (Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio),38 to expand his collection. For him, André Lévy revisited a field he had masterfully explored years before. For the “Pavillon des corps curieux” series, he focused on two collections of erotic huaben: Huanxi yuanjia 歡喜冤家 (Antagonists in Love) and Yipianqing 一片情 (All for Love); he did so without re-using the texts that Rainier Lanselle had published in 1987 with Éditions Gallimard in an anthology that it seems was originally intended to be included in Étiemble’s prestigious “Connaissance de l’Orient” series. 36

Reissues in “livre de poche” format in the “Picquier-Poche” series appeared, respectively, in 2002, 2015 et 2014. 37 I have written about these three works in Brulotte and Phillips (2006, 332–334; 141–143 and 1443–1444). 38 André Lévy’s complete translation of Pu Songling’s masterpiece (Pu 2005).

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It is worth re-iterating the pioneering work done by Rainier Lanselle, who established himself as one of the great translators of popular fiction (novels and theater) of the final dynasties, and also recalling the setbacks his work encountered. Paradoxically, the man who had campaigned for the distribution of Jin Ping Mei and Rouputuan in France did not appreciate the content of the twelve short stories selected. In a collection of essays that he published in 1987, Étiemble denounced them by stating: “Pornography is so repugnant to me that I refused to make even the slightest profit by publishing in Connaissance de l’Orient a collection of smutty huaben, Le Poisson de jade et l’épingle au phénix (Étiemble 1987, 17–18)”. It is especially surprising to see the term “pornography” being used in this cantankerous outburst, as none of the selected stories warrant that description. In any case, the text, which was published at Éditions Gallimard as a stand-alone work in 1987, with an enthusiastic preface by André Lévy, was eventually included in the “Connaissance de l’Orient” series when Jacques Dars took over in 1991. Since then, it has been number 57 of the Chinese series in “livre de poche” format under the complete title of Le Poisson de jade et l’épingle au phénix. Douze contes chinois du xviie siècle (The Jade Fish and the Phoenix Pin. Twelve Chinese stories from the seventeenth century) (Lanselle [1987] 1991). Completed in 1984, it opens with a long and scholarly introduction that traces the history of the genre and the importance of the collections drawn on, providing marginal and end-of-chapter comments for each of the texts translated in their entirety; the translations, always very spirited and incredibly racy, are followed by numerous and erudite notes and a detailed commentary. Thus, in this collection examining the popularity of the vernacular short story genre there are two tales from the first volume of Pai’an jing qi 拍案驚奇 (i.e., No. 26 and 34 of the first volume of Slapping the Table in Amazement) by Ling Mengchu 凌濛初 (1580–1644), four from Huanxi yuanjia 歡喜冤家 (No. 4, 8, 10 and 15), two from Wushengxi 無聲戲 (Silent Operas) of Li Yu (namely the 6th and 10th stories of the first series), two from Yipianqing 一片情 (numbers 9 and 12), the second story from Fengliu wu 風流悟 (The Vanity of Love), and the ninth story from Zuixing shi 醉醒石 (The Stone that Awakens from Drunkenness). The 10th tale of the Huanxi yuanjia, from which the title of the collection is drawn, was given additional promotion through its inclusion in the “Folio 2e” series (Lanselle 2003) (a series published by Folio that has a wider reach among the general public due to its low price point). This fact proves—if additional proof were, in fact, necessary— that these stories, having enjoyed a scandalous reputation, are not as despicable as Étiemble would have us believe.

8 The Master of the Pavilion It was in 1996 that André Lévy made his first appearance in the “Pavillon des corps curieux” series with Tout pour l’amour. Récits érotiques traduits du chinois (All for Love. Erotic stories translated from Chinese) (Lévy 1996). With the translation

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of twelve unpublished stories, he accomplished the work begun ten years earlier by Rainier Lanselle on Yipianqing一片情. Similarly, he finished translating Huanxi yuanji 歡喜冤家, only four stories of which had been translated before. The size of the collection, numbering no less than 24 stories in total, led Jacques Cotin to divide it into two volumes, collectively titled Amour et Rancune (Love and Grudge). The first volume, titled Les Spectacles curieux du plaisir (The Curious Spectacles of Pleasure) (Lévy 1997a), came out in 1997 and the second, titled Les Miroirs du désir (The Mirrors of Desire), came out two years later (Lévy 1999a). They include the tales numbered 1–3, 5 to 7, 9, 11, and 12, and then tales 13, 14, and 16–24, respectively. Each story is given a short title invented by the translator, who, on this occasion, demonstrated a lively imagination matched by a scrupulous attention to detail. The collection as a whole is, quite simply, very convincing and gives the series the prestige and distinction it deserves. Two additional volumes of different literary registers should be added to these three volumes: Cent poèmes d’Amour de la Chine ancienne (One Hundred Love Poems of Ancient China) (Lévy 1997b), which explores the poetic domain better than George Soulié de Morant (1932) did in his time, and Le Sublime discours de la Fille Candide. Manuel d’érotologie chinoise (The Sublime Speech of the Candide Girl. Manual of Chinese Erotology) (Lévy 2000) which is the translation of Sunü miaolun 素女妙論, a treatise on sex that dates from 1566. This shows the extent of Jacques Cotin’s curiosity for the expression of love in ancient China as well as that of André Lévy, who did not hesitate to go beyond his primary field of expertise. Moreover, he provided a rare opportunity to read a text about the love between boys that went beyond the allusive register.39 This short work was published by the Mercure de France under the title Épingle de femme sous le bonnet viril. Chronique d’un loyal amour (Woman’s Pin under the Virile Cap. Chronicle of a Loyal Love) (Lévy 1997d). It is a translation of the first of the four stories in Bian’er chai 弁而釵, translated in this instance from an edition whose final pages were badly damaged. Not having had the time to consult the version in “Siwuxie huibao”, André Lévy decided to summarize the epilogue.40 Lastly, there is a short humorous extract, entitled “Érotique élémentaire” (Elementary Eroticism), taken from the monumental Guwangyan 姑妄言 (Easy Talk)— whose 28 chapters occupy no less than 10 volumes of the “Siwuxie huibao” series— which was selected and translated by Huang San and Lionel Epstein to complete a short work entitled Quatre amours du temps des Han, des Tang, des Yuan et des Qing Another example is the fourteenth and final story of the Shidiantou 石點頭 (The Rocks Nod their Heads), which, despite being very prudish, systematically disappeared from standard editions in the People’s Republic of China until recently. It has been translated by Thomas Pogu under the title Le Tombeau des amants. Conte chinois de la fin des Ming (The Lovers’ Tomb. A Chinese Story from the End of the Ming Period) (Pogu, 2011). 40 Doctoral theses currently being written by Pierrick Rivet on Bian’er chai and Yichun xiangzhi 宜春香質 (Fragrant Flesh that Disposes of Love) and Yann Moellic on Longyang yishi 龍陽逸史 (Anecdotal History of Lord Longyang, 1632) will soon contribute to knowledge in this area. 39

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(Four loves from the time of the Han, the Tang, the Yuan and the Qing) (Huang and Epstein 2012, 165–182). With this, we can bring to a close this brief overview of Chinese erotic literature of the last two dynasties.41

9 A Preliminary Overview On the whole, there is still a lot to be done, and even to be redone—especially concerning the Rouputuan—but it would seem that the popularity fueled by translators and publishers, first and foremost Éditions Philippe Picquier, has gradually run out of steam. It remains to be seen whether it will pick up again one day, and if so, under what conditions. It is probably unrealistic to dream of seeing a series emerge that makes a collective and coherent effort to revisit the best, revise the bad, and remake the worst. In any case, some progress has been made, and with the necessary corrections and precautions, those who are curious about Chinese eros now have a corpus that is representative of fictional output in this genre. Those who might wish to explore the Chinese psyche at a crucial moment in its history from every possible angle will thus have something to nourish their analyses. Indeed, perhaps they could accomplish— or even adapt—the aims of Anglo-Saxon specialists from recent decades, such as Keith McMahon (1988; 1995) and Martin W. Huang (2001), who have so thoroughly examined the hidden sides of Chinese culture and literature. Nevertheless, there remains a paradox which means that a French reader can enjoy reading in a way that a mainland Chinese reader, who is limited to official bookshops—cannot experience. Indeed, all the books mentioned above are wholly or partly forbidden there. Perhaps, in China, no-one is considered to know how to read, which, as Liu Tingji suggested at the beginning of the eighteenth century, makes it necessary to censor dangerous books: Whatever the authors’ noble intentions, how can readers not fall into the trap of misreading when they come across these critical passages? It is clear that those who do not read well outnumber those who do. Wouldn’t it be better if they did not read at all? If we want to prevent people from misreading these books, it is better not to keep them.42

41

It could be extended only slightly by adding classical language narratives, such as those translated by Huang and Epstein in their micro anthology Four Loves, which includes “You xian ku”游仙窟 “Errances aux grottes des immortelles” (Wanderings to the Caves of the Immortals) previously published in a bilingual edition under the same title by the same publisher in Zhuo (2010); or the more explicit translations by Rousseau (2016) of stories from Yuan Mei’s 袁枚 (1716–1798) Zibuyu 子不語 (What the Master Did Not Speak Of). Note also that in Cotin (2001), he cites extracts from translations of Huanxi yuanjia (Lévy 1997c) and Dengcao heshang zhuan (Kaser 1998) published by him in his “Pavillon des corps curieux” series. 42 Liu ([1957] 1981, 229–232): 然而作者本寓勸懲。讀者每至流蕩。豈非不善讀書之過哉。 天下不善讀書者。 百倍于善讀書者。 讀而不善。 不如不讀。 欲人不讀。 不如不存。 For an unabridged translation of this text with commentary, please see Kaser (2016).

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Lévy, André. 1978–2006. Inventaire analytique et critique du conte chinois en langue vulgaire, 5 vols. Mémoires de l’Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises Series. Paris: Collège de France-Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises. ———. 1981. Le conte en langue vulgaire du XVII e siècle. Bibliothèque de l’Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises Series, Vol. XXV. Paris: Collège de France-Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises. ———, ed. 1985. Fleur en Fiole d’Or. Bibliothèque de La Pléiade Series. Paris: Gallimard. ———, ed. and trans. 1996. Tout pour l’amour. Le Pavillon des corps curieux Series. Arles: Éditions Philippe Picquier. ———, trans. 1997a. Amour et rancune. Les spectacles curieux du Plaisir, ed. Jacques Cotin. Le Pavillon des corps curieux Series. Arles: Éditions Philippe Picquier. ———, trans. 1997b. Cent poèmes d’amour de la Chine ancienne, ed. Jacques Cotin. Le Pavillon des corps curieux Series. Arles: Éditions Philippe Picquier. ———, trans. 1997c. Amour et Rancune Les Miroirs du désir (Huanxi yuanjia), ed. Jacques Cotin. Pavillon des corps curieux Series. Arles: Éditions Philippe Picquier. ———, trans. 1997d. Épingle de femme sous le bonnet viril. Chronique d’un loyal amour. Paris: Mercure de France. ———, ed. and trans. 1999a. Amour et rancune. Les Miroirs du désir. Le Pavillon des corps curieux Series. Arles: Éditions Philippe Picquier. ———. 1999b. La passion de traduire. In De l’un au multiple. Traduction du chinois vers les langues européennes [From One to Many: Translation from Chinese into European Languages], ed. Vivianne Alleton and Michael Lackner, 161–172. Paris: Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme. ———, ed. 2000. Le Sublime discours de la Fille Candide. Manuel d’érotologie chinoise. Le Pavillon des corps curieux Series. Arles: Éditions Philippe Picquier. ———, ed. 2004. Fleur en Fiole d’Or. Folio Series. Paris: Gallimard. ———. 2006. De l’érotisme dans la civilisation chinoise [Eroticism in Chinese Civilization]. In Le Palais du printemps. Peintures érotiques de Chine [The Spring Palace. Erotic Paintings from China], 11–27. Paris: Paris-Musées - Éditions Findakly. Li, Shiwei 黎詩薇. 2016. Jin Ping Mei au travers de l’étude historique et critique de ses traductions anglaises et françaises [Jin Ping Mei through the Historical and Critical Study of its English and French Translations], PhD thesis, Aix-Marseille University. Li, Yu 李漁. 1990. De la chair à l’extase, trans. Christine Corniot. Arles: Éditions Philippe Picquier. ———. 1995. La Chair comme tapis de prière, ed. Pierre Klossowski. 10/18 Series. Paris: Éditions Christian Bourgois. ———. (1990) 1998. À mari jaloux, femme fidèle. Récits du XVIIe siècle, traduits du chinois [Jealous Husband, Faithful Wife: Stories from the 17th Century translated from Chinese], trans. Pierre Kaser. Arles: Éditions Philippe Picquier. Liu, Tingji. (1957) 1981. Zaiyuan zazhi 在園雜誌. In Yuan Ming Qing sandai jinhui xiaoshuo xiqu shiliao, ed. Wang Liqi, 229–232. Shanghai: Shanghai guji. Lü, Tiancheng. 1997. Histoire hétérodoxe d’un lit brodé, trans. Huang San and Lionel Epstein. Arles: Éditions Philippe Picquier. Maurey, Martin, ed. 1990. Du Rouge au gynécée. Arles: Éditions Philippe Picquier. McMahon, Keith. 1988. Causality and Containment in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Fiction. Leiden: Brill. ———. 1995. Misers, Shrews, and Polygamists. Sexuality and Male-Female Relations in Eighteenth-Century Chinese Fiction. Durham-London: Duke University Press. Pauvert, Jean-Jacques. 1995–1996. Anthologie historique des lectures érotiques [Historical Anthology of Erotic Readings], 5 vols. Paris: Stock/Spengler. Pimpaneau, Jacques. 2004. Anthologie de la littérature chinoise Classique [Anthology of Classical Chinese Literature]. Arles: Philippe Picquier. ———. (2003) 2015. De l’érotisme en Chine ancienne [Eroticism in Ancient China]. In Les Jardins du plaisir. Érotisme et art dans la Chine ancienne [The Gardens of Pleasure. Eroticism and Art in Ancient China], ed. Ferdinand Bertholet and Jacques Pimpaneau, 10–104. Paris: Philippe Rey.

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Pogu, Thomas, trans. 2011. Le Tombeau des amants. Conte chinois de la fin des Ming [The Lovers’ Tomb. A Chinese Story from the End of the Ming Period]. Paris: Éditions Cartouche. Porret, Jean-Pierre. 1949. Kin P’ing Mei ou la merveilleuse histoire de Hsi Men avec ses six femmes, 2 vols. Paris: Guy le Prat. ———. 1962. Kin P’ing Mei ou la merveilleuse histoire de Hsi Men avec ses six femmes. Paris: Productions de Paris. Postel, Philippe. 2013. Les traductions des romans de mœurs chinois classiques en français [Translations of Classical Chinese Novels of Manners into French]. Impressions d’Extrême-Orient 3. http://journals.openedition.org/ideo/241. Pu, Songling. 2005. Chroniques de l’étrange, 2 vols, trans. André Lévy. Arles: Philippe Picquier. Rev, Yimen. 1997. Dreams of Spring: Erotic Art in China from the Bertholet Collection. Amsterdam: Pepin Press. ———. 1998. Rêves de printemps. L’art érotique en Chine, trans. Isabelle Boudon. Arles: Éditions Picquier Philippe. Rousseau, Alain. 2016. Cinq histoires généralement omises des éditions chinoises récentes du Zibuyu et du Xu Zibuyu de Yuan Mei. Impressions d’Extrême-Orient, 6. http://journals.opened ition.org/ideo/472. Sade, Donatien-Alphonse-François. 1799. Les Crimes de l’amour. Nouvelles héroïques et tragiques, Précédés d’une Idée sur les Romans, et ornés de gravures. Paris: Chez Massé. ———. 2005. The Crimes of Love. Heroic and Tragic Tales. Preceded by an Essay on Novels, trans. David Coward. Oxford World’s Classics Series, XIV–342. New York: Oxford University Press. Schlegel, Gustave.1877. Mai Yu Lang Tou tchen hoa koueï, Le vendeur d’huile qui seul possède la Reine-de-beauté ou Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes chinoises [The Oil Vendor Who Alone Possesses the Queen of Beauty or Splendors and Miseries of Chinese Courtesans Maiyou lang du zhan Huagui 賣油郎獨占花魁]. Leyde-Paris: Brill-Maisonneuve. Shi, Nai-an. 1997. Au bord de l’eau, trans. Jacques Dars. Folio Series. Paris: Gallimard. Shi, Nai-an, and Luo Guan-Zhong. 1978. Au bord de l’eau, trans. Jacques Dars. Bibliothèque de la Pléiade Series. Paris: Gallimard. Soulié de Morant, George. 1912a. Essai sur la littérature chinoise. Paris: Mercure de France. ———. 1912b. Lotus-d’Or. Paris: Charpentier et Fasquelle. ———. 1928. L’amoureuse Oriole, jeune fille. Roman d’amour chinois du xiiie siècle [The Amorous Oriole, Young Girl. Chinese Love Story from the 13th Century]. Paris: Ernest Flammarion. ———, trans. 1932. Anthologie de l’Amour chinois. Poèmes de lascivité parfumée [Anthology of Chinese Love: Poems of Fragrant Lasciviousness]. Paris: Mercure de France. Van Gulik, Robert Hans. 1971. La vie sexuelle dans la Chine ancienne [Sexual Life in Ancient China. A Preliminary Survey of Chinese Sex and Society from ca. 1500 B.C. till 1644 A.D], trans. Louis Évrard. Bibliothèque des histoires Series. Éditions Gallimard. Wang, Liqi. 1957. Yuan Ming Qing sandai jinhui xiaoshuo xiqu shiliao元明清三代禁毀小說戲曲史料. Shanghai: Shanghai guji. Wang, Shifu. 2015. Le Pavillon de l’Ouest, trans. Rainier Lanselle. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Zhongguo wenlian. 1991. Zhongguo tongsu xiaoshuo zhonghu tiyao 中國通俗小說總目提要. Beijing: Zhongguo wenlian chuban gongsi. Zhuo, Zhang. 2010. Errances aux grottes des immortelles You xian ku [Wanderings to the Caves of the Immortals], trans. Huang San and Lionel Epstein. Paris: You Feng.

Pierre Kaser is Professor of Classical Chinese Language and Literature in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Aix-Marseille, France, and member of the Institute for Asian Research (IrAsia, UMR7306), where he leads the “Asian literatures and translation” research group. He is the editor of the online journal Impressions d’Extrême-Orient and also the translator of short stories by Li Yu 李漁 (1611–1680), three erotic novels of the Ming-Qing period, as well as the Yangzhou shiriji 揚州十日記 by Wang Xiuchu 王秀楚 and an anthology of classical poetry on Yangzhou (Yangzhou en vers, Beijing, 2020).

Japanese Translations of Jin Ping Mei: Chinese Sexuality in the Sociocultural Context of Japan Lintao Qi

and Shani Tobias

Abstract China and Japan have a long history of literary exchange. As a masterpiece of classical Chinese literature, Jin Ping Mei has been well-known among the Japanese literati since the Edo period. Over the centuries, a large number of Japanese translations and adaptations of the Chinese novel have been produced, which often involve interaction with literary censorship, due to the explicit sexual descriptions in Jin Ping Mei. This chapter examines how the sociocultural contexts of Japan during different historical periods have influenced and shaped the translation and dissemination of Jin Ping Mei. When examined diachronically, the different ways in which Jin Ping Mei was translated and adapted provide a clear historical timeline of the vicissitude of Japanese censorship of sexuality. Translations are therefore tied to their historical contexts, and translation products should be examined at once textually and contextually in order to more fully understand the processes and strategies of translation, adaptation and dissemination. Keywords Japanese translation · Jin Ping Mei · Sexuality · Literary censorship · Manga adaptation · Sociocultural context

1 Introduction Jin Ping Mei (hereafter JPM) is one of the four literary masterworks of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) in China, the other three being Shui Hu Zhuan, Xi You Ji and Sanguo Yanyi. In the context of world literature, James Robert Hightower (1953, 120) contends that JPM will “rank with the greatest novels of the West”. David Tod Roy, This paper was supported by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation Research Grants programme: Constructing a Socio-cultural History of Japanese Translations of the Classical Chinese Novel Jin Ping Mei (Project Number: RG008-P-19), during the period 1 July 2020–30 April 2022. L. Qi (B) · S. Tobias Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected] S. Tobias e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Qi and S. Tobias (eds.), Encountering China’s Past, New Frontiers in Translation Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0648-0_8

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an established JPM studies scholar and the translator of the novel’s latest English version, makes a more comprehensive observation of the literary merits of JPM in the introduction to his translation: The Chin P’ing Mei (The Plum in the Golden Vase) is an enormous, complex, and sophisticated novel, surprisingly modern in its design […]. The work is a landmark in the development of narrative art, not only from a specifically Chinese perspective, but in a worldhistorical context. With the possible exceptions of The Tale of Genji (1010) and Don Quixote (1615), neither of which it resembles, but with both of which it can bear comparison, there is no earlier work of prose fiction of equal sophistication in world literature. (Xiaoxiaosheng and Roy 1993, xvii)

This 100-chapter magnum opus is, by its nature, a masterpiece of satire of the then declining and decaying Ming society, providing a vivid depiction of life across all social strata, from its top officials to the lowly underdogs. It does so by portraying the everyday domestic life in the household of Ximen Qing, a typical social climber who actively intersects with people from all walks of life (Qi 2018). The author was believed to have written a great realistic novel: [He] set out, coldly and objectively, to relate the rise to fortune and the later ruin of a typical household at a time when Chinese officialdom was exceedingly corrupt. He omitted no detail of this corruption, whether in public or in private life. Such detail he obviously considered essential to his story. If he had been an English writer he would have avoided some subjects completely, skated over thin ice, and wrapped up certain episodes in a mist of words. This he does not do. He allows himself no reticences. (Xiaoxiaosheng and Egerton 1939, vii–viii)

The comments above were made by Clement Egerton, translator of a 1939 English version of JPM. On the one hand, he was impressed with the source text (ST) author’s craftsmanship in revealing a corrupt society with his language, but on the other hand, he found it not possible to translate the author’s portrayal of the “private life” faithfully into English. Egerton ended up rending “occasional long passages” of sexual description into Latin within his English version of JPM (Qi 2016, 48). Egerton is not alone in this regard. The graphically explicit sexual scenes in JPM, which he found “embarrassing for the translator” (Xiaoxiaosheng and Egerton 1939, viii), also pose challenges for the other translators of the novel from around the world (Qi 2021). This chapter investigates how the sexual component of JPM was dealt with by translators in the Japanese context, by situating representative translated versions of the Chinese novel in the sociocultural contexts of Japan in each historical period. Unsurprisingly, literary censorship of obscenity is a common feature of translated texts, but a comprehensively diachronic study of JPM’s journey into the Japanese language and culture from that perspective is still lacking. Indeed, research on Japanese translations of JPM, in general, is only sporadic and often concentrates on individual texts or certain historical moments. Japanese scholars, such as Hisayasu Torii, Satoshi Nakazatomi and Takeshi Araki, are interested mainly in exploring the literary merits, features and language of the ST. The few researchers who do investigate the Japanese translations of JPM, such as Takeshi Tokuda (1987) and Yuko Kawashima (2013, 2020), usually confine their examination either to descriptions

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of newly discovered target texts (TT) or to a clearly defined historical period. For example, Kawashima has conducted groundbreaking research on the dissemination and translation of JPM in Japan during the Edo period, but not beyond that historical period. In China, research on the translation of Chinese literature is dominated by scholars of the Chinese–English language pair. Translations for and dissemination in the Anglophone market have been extremely fruitful; in contrast, translations of Chinese literature into other languages and cultures are largely ignored or at least underrepresented. In terms of Japanese translations of JPM, there are only a few articles published. Yihong Zhang (2012), for example, provides a historical overview of the major Japanese versions of JPM. Considering the under-researched status of the field, this gives us a useful insight into the scale of dissemination of the novel in Japan. However, without a central theme or any theoretical underpinning, the article reads like a fragmentary summary of the various TTs. It also does not encompass all the translated versions, nor all the literary genres or historical periods involved. In her Three Japanese Translations of JPM in Post-war Japan, Ying Zhao (2018) conducts detailed studies with a focus on selected texts. However, the article, as its title suggests explicitly, is solely descriptive and does not critically analyse the translations. Xiangrong Fu completes a PhD thesis at National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan in 2016. Entitled The Dissemination and Reception of Jin Ping Mei in China and Japan, the thesis is still in embargo (Fu 2016). Judging from its table of contents, though, the six-chapter thesis dedicates only one chapter to introducing Japanese translations and adaptations of JPM, with the rest of the thesis focusing on the novel’s dissemination in China. For the post-war period, for example, its coverage is limited to two complete translations, produced by Tokuji Ozaka and Shinobu Ono & Kuichi Chida, respectively. However, as this chapter will reveal, the post-war adaptations of JPM in Japan feature a much more diverse range of genres, media and translation approaches.

2 JPM Travels to Japan: Kyokutei Bakin’s JPM in the Edo Period Historical records suggest that cultural exchange between China and Japan dates back to the first century. Before Japan developed its own written language, Chinese characters were adopted for official communication and literary creation. This necessitated the importation of books from China and gave rise to literary works written in Chinese by Japanese intellectuals. Kaif¯us¯o (751), Japan’s earliest poetry anthology, comprises 120 poems, in which there are 241 quotations from Chinese poets (Yang and Wu 2004, 54). In 1211, Japanese monk Gachirin-Daishi Shunjo (1166–1227), after living in China for twelve years, returned to Kyoto with 1,200 volumes of Buddhist Sutras and 719 volumes of Chinese classics (Allen et al. 2010, 233). During

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the Edo period (1603–1868), the importation of Chinese books was mainly carried out by merchants trading between the two countries. The development of ch¯onin (townspeople) culture greatly facilitated the popularisation of novels, a democracy of reading enabled by the advancement in printing technology, rising rate of literacy in the population, and improved access to financial resources by ordinary people. To satisfy the growing literary public, authors in Japan, as well as creating original novels, engaged in adaptation of Chinese literary works. Since the same period in China was also the golden era for novels, hundreds of Chinese novels were introduced into Japan.1 As one of the four masterworks of the Ming Dynasty, JPM was brought to Japan soon after its appearance in the early seventeenth century. However, this earlier version was not widely read, with the few extant copies collected, at the time, by privileged individuals or temples. The version distributed more widely was a revised and popularised edition of JPM annotated by Zhang Zhupo around 1695. Research shows that at least eleven copies (each copy has 100 chapters divided into 20 volumes) were shipped to Japan in 1751 alone (Kawashima 2020, 28). There were also references to its story in contemporary literary works, and it was not unusual to find JPM quoted or consulted in Japanese annotations of the other popular Chinese novels (ibid., 28–31). Among the literati in the late Edo period, there was even a reading club to share research and interpretation of linguistic and cultural elements in JPM (Tokuda 1987, 785–803). However, for ordinary Japanese people who were not literate in Chinese, JPM would remain inaccessible if there was no translated version available. Interestingly, many other Chinese novels, particularly the other three masterworks from the Ming Dynasty, had multiple translated or adapted Japanese versions in the Edo period, but JPM had only one adaptation which was loosely based on the ST story. The early Edo culture of Japan featured a relaxed attitude towards sexuality, both in reality and in literature. Philipp Franz Balthasar von Siebold (1897) reported seeing naked Japanese men entering brothels during daytime, and concluded that for the people in the Edo period, visiting brothels was as normal and essential as going to restaurants. Shunga (erotic paintings) and erotic literature also prospered, with a number of painters known for their erotic works. Authors such as Ihara Saikaku (1642–1693) achieved sensational success with their erotic writings including The Life of an Amorous Man (1682) and The Life of an Amorous Woman (1687). One would imagine JPM as a natural choice for translation into Japanese in such context, but the language of JPM, consisting of not only extensive cultural references, but also dialectal usage from multiple regions of China, might have proven too challenging for Japanese translators (Kawashima 2020). Furthermore, while the other Chinese novels may be able to supply something culturally exotic or inspiring, the story of JPM, mostly about the domestic life and amorous adventures of a wealthy merchant, may sound a bit too mediocre, unexciting, and indeed, 1

Some of these novels, such as Yushi mingyan and Jingshi tongyan, gradually disappeared in China, partly due to the increasingly rigid literary censorship in the Qing Dynasty (1636–1912). The copies of these works imported to Japan were well-preserved, which provided textual support for the Chinese to restore their literary history (Liu 2004).

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familiar in the Japanese literary tradition. As such, its translation was subject to the personal ideology of any translator who would test their hands on it. In other words, how sexuality in JPM was translated in the Japanese TT was more conditioned by the translator’s self-censorship than shaped by rigid state censorship on obscenity.2 Kyokutei Bakin (1767–1848) was the first person to produce a Japanese version of JPM. Bakin, one of the most famous Edo-period novelists, had already adapted well-known Chinese novels such as Shui Hu Zhuan and Sanguo Yanyi. Most of his works were much sought after at the time, but his adaptation of JPM was not as successful. The reasons for its poor reception by readers were perhaps manifold, but Bakin’s self-censorship of sexual descriptions in the novel was undoubtedly an important factor. This is reflected in both his expurgation of the erotic details in the translated text and his criticism of the Chinese novel in the paratexts. Bakin’s JPM was published in ten volumes, intermittently over sixteen years. The first volume was released in 1831, and the tenth volume did not come out until 1847 (Kawashima 2013, 149). Bakin lost his sight during this period, and his daughter-inlaw O’Michi, became his amanuensis in 1840 (Zolbrod 1966, 41). However, there are debates about whether his JPM could be considered an adaptation of the Chinese novel. He not only changed the names of the protagonists into Japanese names, but he also deleted what he considered as salacious descriptions and replaced these with an explicit theme of reward and retribution. Endorsed by the Tokugawa Shogunate, Confucianism as the state orthodoxy dominated Japanese society during Bakin’s time. The Confucian morality found its full expression in Bakin’s literary creation. He believed that stories about promiscuity would encourage immoral and licentious behaviour and thus should be avoided in novels, which were supposed to be consumed by ordinary readers and ought to be accessible to women and children (Gou 2007, 171–173). Bakin’s self-censorship resulted in a Japanese rewriting of JPM, loosely based on the Chinese source text. Paratextually, Bakin included a preface for each of the ten volumes of his JPM, to elaborate on his censure of the Chinese novel. Traditionally, Japanese novels did not usually include elements such as prefaces or afterwords, which were nevertheless an integral part of Chinese novels, particularly in the Ming and Qing dynasties. This attracted the attention and interest of Japanese intellectuals in the Edo period, who began to furnish their novels with such paratextual elements to shape readers’ reception. In Bakin’s prefaces, he expressed his disagreement with the juxtaposition of JPM with the other masterworks of the Ming Dynasty, attributing it to Chinese booksellers’ marketing strategy and the voluptuous lifestyle of the Ming Dynasty. Using epithets typical of Confucian preaching, Bakin (1918, 2) commented that JPM is not appropriate to be read and discussed between the emperor and his subjects, or between father and son, particularly because its story was developed on

2

There was indeed a ban on erotic literature introduced in 1722, but shunga by illustrators such as Utagawa Kunisada and Utagawa Kuniyoshi continued to spring up in the early nineteenth century, which was evidence that censorship on erotica, though stiffening, was not to be over-interpreted as a determining factor in literary or artistic creation in the Edo period.

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the basis of adultery between Ximen Qing and Pan Jinlian, who plotted the death of Pan’s husband Wu Da. Bakin’s paratextual comments on the Chinese novel are more ideological than literary, highlighting his self-positioning as a censor, or rather, moralist. Since he altered the theme of the novel and bowdlerised the text, his Japanese adaptation of JPM is no longer a story with sexually graphical details. Hence criticising the erotic contents of the source text would only foreground the discrepancy between his adaptation and the Chinese original, and that between the paratexts and text of his Japanese rendition. From a literary perspective, such discrepancy is likely to disturb the integrity of the novel in question, which would perhaps not help with its wide circulation. For readers of erotic literature, there was no shortage of novels to read in the Edo period, while for puritanical readers, any slight reference to immoral sexual relationship, even if only paratextual, was sufficient for them to keep their distance from the book. At any rate, as a starting point for shaping interpretation, Bakin’s preface would have been the first element readers encountered in his adaptation of JPM, which firmly established JPM’s reputation as a novel no “gentleman” would consider reading. Additionally, during the late years of the Tokugawa Shogunate, erotic literature, and indeed, popular literature in general, had been singled out for suppression by the government, in both the Kansei reforms (1787–1793) and Tenp¯o Reforms (1841– 1843). In the Tenp¯o period in particular, “commercial publishing came under the most severe pressure” (Kornicki 2000). Ry¯utei Tanehiko (1783–1842), author of A Fraudulent Murasaki’s Rustic Genji (Nise Murasaki inaka Genji), which was considered “the most successful serial novel of the Edo period” (Marks and Addiss 2012, 190), became a victim of the Tenp¯o Reforms. His Rustic Genji, which was interpreted as political critique of the eleventh shogun Tokugawa Ienari’s rule, was banned in 1842 (Machotka 2009, 150), and Tanehiko lost his life “on the same day authorities seized the blocks” for the book, some believed, by suicide (Markus 2020, 195). Bakin, as a contemporary of Tanehiko, was very concerned about the development, which could mean that his own “position was far from invulnerable” (ibid.), even though he conscientiously practised Confucian principles and kept his distance from morally inappropriate writing, as shown in his adaptation of JPM.

3 From Meiji Period to Pre-War Japan: JPM’s Encounter with Censorship It is perhaps not surprising to find no new translation of JPM produced in the Edo period, with the exception of an innocuous 1860 kabuki script, which was nevertheless based on Bakin’s adaptation. Censorship in Japan, in the meantime, increasingly became a social reality that hindered literary expression of sexuality, which did nothing to encourage the dissemination, let alone the translation, of works such as JPM. In the Meiji Period (1868–1912), the government enforced much harsher

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censorship. Its Publication Ordinance of 1869, for example, subjected publications to pre-publication review and approval. In 1893, the Meiji government revised again its already very rigid Publication Law, which remained in effect until after the Second World War (Wong and Yau 2020, 25). Although the focus of the state censorship during this period was mainly on potentially subversive social ideals such as liberal democracy, pornography was also banned. Article 175 of the 1907 Penal Code, for example, includes specific reference to sale and distribution of obscene materials: A person who distributes or sells an obscene writing, picture, or other object or who publicly displays the same, shall be punished with imprisonment […] or a fine. The same applies to a person who possesses the same for the purpose of sale. (qtd in Alexander 2003, 154)

Importantly, Article 175 was seldom invoked prior to the end of World War II, because under the other laws such as the Publication Law and the Press Law, censors were already authorised to prohibit sales of obscene materials and to punish the publishers and producers of such materials (Kim 1975, 256). But it is apparent that since then, all adult content had to be (self-)censored in Japan. The Taish¯o period (1912–1926), despite being known as the “Taish¯o democracy” after World War I, saw even tighter control of publications that were considered threatening to the social order or morality (Sims 2001, 121). Even literary works with only implicit, metaphorical references to sexuality were prohibited from circulation. Hong Lou Meng (Dream of the Red Chamber), an established literary masterpiece of the Qing Dynasty, had its Japanese translation by Shunp¯ur¯o Kishi banned soon after its publication in 1916 (Jyo 1969, 141). Another Chinese title, Xi Xiang Ji (Romance of the Western Chamber) of the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368), went on to the list of banned books at least twice during the Taish¯o period, in 1914 and 1916, respectively (132–141). However, many a translator attempted to release Japanese versions of JPM during the Meiji and Taish¯o periods. Understandably, all of them took measures to downplay the sexual descriptions in the novel in order to escape the censor’s attention which might then lead to prosecution. The first volume of Misao Matsumura’s translation appeared in 1882 (Matsumura 1882). By 1885, six volumes had been published accounting for the first nine chapters of the Chinese ST. This translation project was then aborted with the sudden death of the translator. Matsumura claimed his version as the first Japanese translation in the preface to his first volume by referring to Bakin’s JPM as free rewriting, which did not deserve to be called a translation (ibid., 3). But his translation, while not intentionally altering the story line, nevertheless omitted many verbal exchanges between characters that were deemed boringly obscure for Japanese readers, and deleted the salacious details of the source text, “in line with the publisher’s requirements” (ibid., 3–4). By providing a summary translation of the ST stories without retaining its graphically sexual details, Matsumura’s translation submitted to the literary censorship of his time. The major difference between Matsumura and Bakin is probably that Bakin’s self-censorship was voluntary, while Matsumura’s version represented mainly the self-censoring attitude of the publisher. Not everyone can evade the censors by preemptively self-censoring their translation. The translators of the Taish¯o period were not so lucky. In 1923, K¯obai Inoue

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published the first substantial translation of JPM. In three volumes, he covered the first 79 out of 100 chapters of the source text. Like his predecessors, Inoue also toned down the erotic nature of the novel by expurgating the clinical details of Ximen’s amorous adventures. And to further legitimise his translation, he alleged that reading JPM could deepen understanding of Chinese society so as to more effectively engage with its people (Inoue 1923). After the first Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), Japan purposefully expanded its knowledge about China in order to facilitate its colonisation of Manchuria and Taiwan. Popular Chinese literature became a convenient channel for such purposes, in addition to books of sociology and anthropology, and books about Chinese customs and cultures (Fu 2020, 219). Aligning his translation with such social milieu, Inoue made this didactic approach explicit in the title of his translation: Jin Ping Mei and the State of Chinese Society. Furthermore, Inoue also furnished his translation of JPM with cultural notes, in the form of translatorial commentary after each chapter in the first two volumes (in the third volume, he only provided commentary for the first two chapters). What happened later suggests that positioning a translation as responding to sociocultural trends was not a foolproof approach. Inoue’s JPM was banned in 1925, together with another Japanese translation of JPM by Jinwei Xia and Masafumi Yamada (Kawashima 2020, 34). Xia & Yamada’s translation was banned almost immediately after its publication in 1925. There are a few unique features about this rendition. It is the first Japanese version that was promoted as a “complete translation” of JPM, even though the one-volume translation covers only 22 chapters out of 100 of the ST. It is also the first and only translation of JPM that was collaboratively produced by Chinese and Japanese translators. In the prefaces to the book, Xia describes himself as a Chinese from “the Republic of China”, and Yamada is a native Japanese (Xia and Yamada 1925), though there are suspicions about the “Chinese” identity of Xia (Nagasawa 1985, 363). Similar to Inoue’s translation, Xia & Yamada also attempted to situate their translation in the contemporary social context, expressing their hope in the prefaces that their translation of JPM would assist readers in their understanding of China and bring the relations between the two countries closer (Xia and Yamada 1925, n.p.). In addition to underlining the instrumental function of their translation, the translators also bowdlerised the provoking erotic scenes of the ST. However, the editorial devices they used to expurgate the ST highlighted the erotic nature of the text, and indeed, foregrounded the censorial context of Japan, which might have irritated the censors to jump to its prohibition. As shown in Fig. 1, instead of deleting the sexual descriptions from their TT, the translators decided to replace them with the symbol “O” as a clear indication of deletion. Japan entered the reign of Emperor Sh¯owa in 1926. The increasingly militant government practised more and more radical measures to control publications and media, with newspapers, for example, virtually outlawed during World War II. The whole country was turned into a war machine, and literary publication was put to a halt. When the Second World War ended in 1945, the defeated Japan was occupied by U.S.-led Allied Forces. Except for open criticism of the U.S., which was prohibited (Rosenfeld 2002, 86), literary publication was in large part liberated from pre-war suppressions. This gave rise to a most diverse range of translations of JPM,

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Fig. 1 Pages from Japanese translation by Xia and Yamada (1925)

across all media forms, from magazine serials to book-length publications, from abridged translations to complete translations, from translations to adaptations, from traditional textual translations to comic books, from the page to the stage, and from the theatre to the cinema. As Gakuji Ueda (1967, 307) describes in the postscript to his 1967 translation: “As sexual literature was unleashed after WWII, different translations [of JPM] were published one after another”.

4 The Post-War Translations of JPM After World War II, for the first time in Japan, a complete translation of JPM was produced. In September 1948, Tozai Shuppansha published the Complete Translation of Jin Ping Mei by Tokuji Ozaka (1920–1997). While studying in Beijing in his twenties, Ozaka purchased his first copy of JPM, “cheeks blushed” as he was afraid that people “would consider me as fulfilling my vulgar desire” in reading the erotic book (Ozaka 1948, 435). Initially attracted by the sexual descriptions, Ozaka soon began to also appreciate the novel’s vivid description of “the dark side of Chinese society”. He even imagined himself translating the novel into Japanese after he turned fifty, when he had tasted “the bitter sweet of life” (ibid.). The war changed the course of life for many, and Ozaka ended up translating JPM while still in his twenties

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because “after Japan lost the war, I had actually experienced the change of the times and had seen the world of JPM” (ibid.). Ozaka was at the time teaching in the Chinese department of Hosei University. JPM was the first Chinese novel he translated, and he subsequently also translated a sequel to JPM and another well-known erotic Chinese novel Rou Putuan (The Carnal Prayer Mat), in addition to a few other contemporary Chinese novels. Ozaka’s translation of JPM was indeed bolder than its predecessors: though not without omissions, the sexual descriptions were much more detailed. The publisher lost no opportunity to bring the erotic nature of the book to the fore. On the belly bands of the four volumes of Ozaka’s translation, expressions such as “libertine man”, “lascivious woman” and “naturalistic descriptions” were used to portray JPM as “the peak of erotica in world literature” (Ozaka 1948). When the final and fourth volume of Ozaka’s translation was published in 1949, its belly band quoted Qian Shoutie’s comment on JPM’s value in revealing the corruption within society (which should thus be read as a “good book”). However, its blurb continued to emphasise the novel’s depiction of “love and desire” (Ozaka 1949, n.p.). Being the only translation of all 100 chapters of the ST, the publisher rightly foregrounded that Ozaka’s translation was the first ever complete translation of JPM in Japan. Ozaka (1948, 436) concludes his postscript to the first volume of his translation with the following statement: “I did my best to translate the book conscientiously. Now I’m just waiting to receive general critiques”. Although not much information has been discovered regarding the reception of Ozaka’s translation, the fact that his translation has been reprinted multiple times in the following decades by at least four other Japanese publishing houses, with black-and-white images and colour images gradually added along the way, is evidence for its moderate success. There is nevertheless a widely held misconception that Ozaka’s translation was of a very poor quality and disappeared shortly after the arrival of another complete translation by Shinobu Ono (1906–1980) and Kuichi Chida (1912–1965), which also commenced publication in 1948. The misapprehension stems partly from the afterword of this rival translation. Ono and Chida are both Chinese literature specialists, and like Ozaka, they also translated a wide range of Chinese literary works, classical and contemporary, but at a more massive scale with greater impact. The first volume of their Complete Translation of Jin Ping Mei was published by Toho Shobu in September 1948, the same month as the release of the first volume of Ozaka’s translation. By April 1949, four volumes, each covering ten chapters of the ST, were released, but the publication project was subsequently aborted (it seems that Toho Shobu ceased to exist). The two translators nevertheless continued to complete their translation of the Chinese novel, and the full version of their TT was eventually brought out by Heibonsha in 1960 (Ono and Chida 1960) and later concurrently by Iwanami Shoten in 1973 (Ono and Chida 1973). Both publishers have since reprinted Ono and Chida’s translation of JPM dozens of times. In the Afterword to the first volume of their 1948 translation (which was removed from later editions by other publishers), Ono and Chida made a critical comment on a rival translation, without explicitly naming the translator:

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A certain translation, which used the cihua [Wanli] edition as its source text, was published this year. Although translation of Chinese literature today is much improved compared to the past, this translation was very poor, without excuse. It would have brought Xiaoxiaosheng [the ST author] to tears. (Ono and Chida 1948, 17)

It is likely that some readers were misled to think Ono and Chida were criticising Ozaka’s translation, as it was the better-known rival version that was published in the same year. However, a little serious research appears to falsify this view. Ono and Chida would have had to read the other translation before making any comment on its quality, but both Ono & Chida’s and Ozaka’s translated versions were not in circulation until September 1948, and the date Ono wrote the Preface was even earlier, on 30 May 1948 (Ono and Chida 1948, 18). As such, the viewpoint was illogical in terms of sequence of events. Additionally, the translation Ono and Chida criticised was based on the cihua edition (otherwise known as the Wanli edition) of the ST, but Ozaka’s rendition was apparently made from the later Chongzhen edition. It turned out that another much less-known Japanese translation of JPM was published in January 1948. Adopting the Chinese title Jin Ping Mei cihua, the rendition was carried out by Shuichiro Izumi and published by Biju Shobo. It was a one-volume translation covering only the first ten chapters of the ST. The volume was designated “Book of Pan Jinlian” (Izumi 1948), which seems to indicate that subsequent volumes are upcoming, but there was never a second volume to this translation. This translation has never been reprinted, which might, to a certain extent, direct readers’ interpretation of Ono and Chida’s criticism to Ozaka’s translation published in the same year. Ono and Chida were very conscious about the completeness of their translation, as reflected in the Postscript to their third volume of translation: What I grew quite sick of in translating a novel like Jin Ping Mei is that the original text is too garrulous. When women appear, the array of things they are wearing from the top of the head to the tip of the toe are described. When dishes are mentioned, over 10 kinds of dishes are listed one by one, which is quite inscrutable. When I faced such sections, I was horrified. Even if I were to somehow translate those into Japanese, neither the translator nor the readers would understand them anyway. So I considered removing the references, but as it bears the label of “complete translation”, I could not really do that, and I needed to make the story somehow seem coherent. (Ono and Chida 1949, 323)

While Ono and Chida tried to make their translation live up to the label of “complete translation”, they had a difficult decision to make about the “sexual expressions” which they considered quite “monotonous”: “There were slight changes in individual scenes depending on the situation and people, and the things that needed to be abridged were nicely abridged” (Ono and Chida 1949, 323). Some of the sexual scenes, particularly those involving verisimilar description of genitals and intercourse, were therefore omitted from their translation. As a way to compensate for this loss, the translators provided the Chinese ST for the omitted sections in the endnotes to each chapter, making the ST interestingly co-exist with the TT in the same textual space (see, for example, the version published by Heibonsha in 1960). Curiously, these Chinese ST segments were later removed from reprints of their translation, while the TT remained unchanged (see, for example, the version

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published by Heibonsha in 1962), nor was the major part of the book, i.e. the translated text, re-typeset. So in places where the erotic segments of the ST had initially been printed, the translators instead supplied some linguistic and cultural notes about difficult expressions or exotic objects. The translators made no explanation about such changes. Without analysing the socio-historical context, it may be interpreted as resulting from the translators’ decision that cultural notes are more important than including supplementary text in Chinese. While the former enables readers to better appreciate their translation, the latter would prove useless for readers who are not literate in Chinese. Retaining the Chinese erotic passages to make the translation complete is indicative of the translators’ desire to remain faithful to the ST. Replacing them with cultural notes might suggest a shift away from a ST-oriented approach to a more reader-friendly, if not entirely reader-centred approach. However, a more sophisticated understanding may be obtained through analysing this seemingly editorial change in relation to its sociocultural contexts. One might expect the translators to make their translation “fuller” by including the Japanese version of the Chinese ST segments previously included as endnotes (rather than simply deleting them). Yet although there was a liberated attitude towards literary sexuality in the post-war decades, the interaction between literary creation and legal regulations has been rather complex, with mixed, uncertain, and capricious messages conveyed by various court decisions. In the 1947 Constitution of Japan, freedom of expression is guaranteed by Article 21, which stipulates that “no censorship shall be maintained” (Tokikuni 1963, 704). It is nevertheless a criminal offence under Article 175 of the 1907 Penal Code, to distribute, sell or display an “obscene document”, and this provision is still in effect today. Coexistence of the two Articles has given rise to much perplexity among not only the public, but also the legal profession. In 1957, a case was brought against the translator and publisher of the Japanese rendition of D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. After losing the case in the Tokyo District Court, the two defendants appealed to the Tokyo High Court and then to the Supreme Court (Kim 1975). They were found guilty of translating and publishing a work of obscenity for the purpose of sale. Only a few years later, a Japanese translation of Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer was published in Japan, with the objectionable sections left in English (Tokikuni 1963, 706). The publisher, who admitted his guilt, was similarly charged under Article 175 of the Penal Code. In the case of Ono and Chida’s translation of JPM, keeping the Chinese sexual descriptions in their translation would run the same risk of prosecution. As such, their removal from the later reprints and replacement with more innocuous cultural notes would seem to be more a compromise with the censors than a case of the translators or the publisher acting out of poetic or readerly considerations.

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5 Integration into Popular Culture: Transmedial Adaptations of JPM There are many other abridged translations of JPM appearing in various magazines in post-war Japan before the 1960s, including one adapted by Fusao Hayashi from an abridged English translation by Bernard Miall. However, since it is the objective of this article to decipher the interaction between translation and sociocultural context, we will present only some representative translations from each historical period. Another influential Japanese translation of JPM appeared in 1967. It was translated by Gakuji Ueda and published by Jinbutsu Oraisha. No reprint of this translation seems to exist, but it is uniquely positioned in the translation history of JPM because of its transmedial influence. Ueda’s was not a complete translation, and he endeavours to complement the “existing translations” of JPM that appeared one after another after World War II with a condensed one that would appeal to ordinary readers, as he does not think the “interminable length and overlapping stories of the original work” would attract and maintain Japanese readers’ interest (Ueda 1967, 307–308). Indeed, most Japanese readers “only knew of the title” of JPM (in the same way as Ôgai Mori’s “Vita Sexualis” was known to readers) but not the content (ibid., 307). Ueda hoped his translation could help Japanese readers understand the content of JPM, with the assistance of “Mr Kon Shimizu’s beautiful illustrations” (Ueda 1967, 308). Ueda’s translation was successful in that regard, not through the publication of his textual translations, but through a movie inspired by and adapted from his translation. Following the end of World War II, eroticism penetrated not only into the book market, but also gradually, into Japanese cinema. Contemporaneous with the U.S. sexploitation film, Japan experienced its first wave of pink films between 1962 and 1971. The so-called Japanese pink film, or “eroduction”, always features nudity (hence pink) and deals with sexual content (Nornes 2014). K¯oji Wakamatsu, widely known as “the most important director to emerge in the pink film genre”, was popularly referred to as “The Pink Godfather” (Desser 1988, 99–101). Ueda’s 1967 translation of JPM soon attracted the attention of Wakamatsu, who decided to adapt it into a film. When the film was screened in 1968, JPM was advertised, on a par with the Arabian Nights, as an “eternal erotic classic” that was “cinematised for the first time in history” (see Fig. 2, which is from a 1968 poster of the film).

Fig. 2 Section of a 1968 poster of the film Jin Ping Mei

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Following the popularisation of the story of JPM by Wakamatsu’s film adaptation, the erotic nature and component of JPM was further underlined in the creative rewritings of Japanese authors. In 1972, Shinji Komada (1914–1994) published a new version of JPM, and he has the following to say about his motivation for writing the book: As you can see from the book title, it is not a translation of Jin Ping Mei. It’s my version of Jin Ping Mei. I read Jin Ping Mei repeatedly as I was impressed by how it described different types of women clearly. It became an obsession, and eventually I decided that I wanted to make these women my own. That was the reason I wrote this book. (Komada 1972, 313)

Komada was a Chinese Studies specialist and at the time a lecturer at Tokyo University. In addition to his teaching and research on Chinese literature, he was also a prolific translator, with a special interest in humorous erotic stories from China. Apart from JPM, he also produced creative rewritings or adaptations of many other well-known Chinese erotica such as Rou Putuan (The Carnal Prayer Mat), Chipozi zhuan (A Tale of an Infatuated Woman) and Ruyijun zhuan (The Lord of Perfect Satisfaction). His rewriting of JPM was made possible in the 1970s by a relaxed sociocultural attitude towards erotica (as represented by the continuing popularity of the pink film). In stark contrast to the previous translations of JPM in which translators had to carefully tone down sexual descriptions, Komada (1972, 315) confessed that he had done the opposite: “My version of Jin Ping Mei keeps the ‘types’ of women and their relationships as in the original text, and follows the original storyline, but all the other parts (and by that I mean the sexual descriptions) are my own creations.” As two manifestations of popular culture, the print media and the cinema move side by side in the expression of sexuality. At the same time as pink film became popular, the so-called sensuality novel (or erotic novel) also greatly expanded its readership. The sensuality novel genre started to prosper in the 1960s and 1970s (Nagata 2018), most prominently with the appearance of the three masters of sensual writings, namely Sôkun Kawakami, Koichiro Uno and Takeo Tomishima (Miyamoto 2015). Censorship in post-war Japan was relaxed compared to wartime, but there were still cases where authors were prosecuted by the authorities (as discussed above). The law continued to be enforced inconsistently, and as a result, with growing flexibility and leniency: after the 1978 ban of Takeo Tomishima’s Shoya no umi, censorship of erotic works appeared to lessen further, and writers were able to enjoy freer expression of sexuality in literature (ibid.). Sôkun Kawakami began to write erotic novels in 1968 and became a guru in sensuality literature (Sensagent 2021). After his death in 1985, many more of his erotic stories, which he mostly dictated in his later years, were published posthumously. Among these publications was Koshoku Kinpeibai (The Amorous Jin Ping Mei), reprinted from an earlier “Special issue of a pornographic book collection”. Years later, in Shin Shimizu’s commentary, he tried to theorise the reason for Kawakami’s attempt to adapt the stories from JPM: “he could not prove himself as a top-ranking erotic novelist without attempting the challenge of Jin Ping Mei”, particularly when most of his works were modern stories (Shimizu 1972, 311). Rewriting the erotic

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stories from JPM, an ancient work from a different culture, became a challenge to be taken on, in order to prove one’s prowess as a writer. Without any concern about censorial harassment, Kawakami made “an entirely free and colloquial adaptation” (ibid., 312). For example, he creatively used boxing terms, such as tackle, jab and straight, to describe intercourse. And he made recourse to footnotes to amplify the erotic nature of his work, as exemplified by “anyhow, lustful minds that men would not understand live in women like beasts” and “What is this white stuff that came out from a women’s mucous membrane? This, presumably, might be cervical canal mucous” (ibid.). From Wakamatsu’s film adaptation to Komada’s attempt to make the women in JPM his own, to Kawakami’s liberal re-creation of the Chinese source text to advocate for his own philosophy of erotic writing, JPM was increasingly integrated into Japanese popular culture. It was now regarded not as a subject to be faithfully translated, but as an object to be practically repurposed. It is not possible to discuss Japanese popular culture without referring to manga. Manga has a long history in Japan, and after World War II there was “a marked increase in demand for manga” (Murray et al. 2016, 94). From the 1960s onward, a devoted manga-reading public fuelled expansion of the manga industry (ibid., 96). In 2014, for example, manga sales accounted for nearly 80% of digital book sales in Japan (Pineda 2015). In 2020, Japan’s manga and comic industry hit record profits despite the pandemic (Peters 2021). There have been serialised publications of comics based on JPM, such as an early one appearing in the Japanese Weekly Playboy in the 1970s, and a more recent one by Mami Takezaki, which began to appear in Manga Grimm Dowa in 2002 and continues to this day. With Japan’s position of being one of the world’s largest producers of pornography and JPM being an infamous erotic classic, the sexual elements of JPM would naturally become the focus of the various manga adaptations. Depending on the subgenre, or rather, the target audience for different comics, JPM was appropriated from various angles. Masako Watanabe (1929–), for example, is an accomplished Japanese manga artist and once received the Shogakukan Manga Award in 1971. She became famous for authoring manga for teenage girls, but turned to creating more sexually explicit works for adult women in the 1980s. Among these later works was her JPM series (Watanabe 1995), of which the first story was published in JOUR in 1993, and the last appeared in 2006. Similarly, there are manga adaptations targeting male readers, exemplified by Shin Mizukami’s Another Story from JIN PING MEI, published in the BBC (Be × Boy Comics) series by Biblos in 2004. This is a monthly magazine of yaoi manga, or “boy’s love”, a genre featuring homoerotic relationships between male characters. With their primary focus on the expression of sexuality for different groups of readers, none of these manga adaptations value faithful representation of the ST stories, as was the typical aim of the translations produced by specialists of Chinese literature in the years after the war. However, like Wakamatsu, who based his 1968 film adaptation of JPM on Ueda’s translation of the Chinese ST, these manga authors usually turn to the relatively faithful Japanese translations to find inspiration for their creations. For instance, Takezaki (2004) uses Ono and Chida’s

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translation as the textual basis for her creation, Watanabe (1995) relies on Tomoyuki Murakami’s rendition for her understanding and rewriting of the Chinese classic, and Tatsuhiko Yamagami’s (1988, 308) manga adaptation consults both Ono & Chida’s and Murakami’s translations. Generally speaking, these manga versions use all kinds of descriptive terms pointing to the erotic nature and content of JPM in their paratexts (covers, belly bands, webpages, etc.) to maximise marketing effectiveness. The actual pictorial elements, while catering to their target readers’ tastes, nevertheless demonstrate different features testifying to their respective sociocultural contexts. Article 175 of the Penal Code, which is still in effect today (as mentioned earlier), was interpreted and enforced differently at different historical moments. For a long time, genitalia and pubic hair were deemed the only non-representable areas, in print as well as in multimodal format, and practically anything else, including “naked breasts in public advertisements, scenes of rape and nudity on television, and sadomasochistic scenarios in comic books”, were permissible (Hiltebeitel and Miller 1998, 195). Yamagami’s 1988 manga version of JPM, as published by Akita Shoten (which currently publishes mostly manga, and has predominantly targeted the teenage market, since its founding in 1948), follows the common practice of covering the private parts by using bokashi (blurring or fogging). When this comic book was reprinted in 2010, the sexual imagery remained blurred, but since the late 1980s, censorship on pubic hair has actually become less stringent. As Solt (1990, 48) observes, in the years leading up to the 1990s, “the showing of pubic hair and genitalia in books of classic Western art has been increasingly tolerated, although no new, more lenient laws have been passed”. In 1991, the so-called “pubic wars” led decisively towards favouring freer exposure of sexuality: in a photobook of popular teenage model Rie Miyazama, pubic hair was revealed in several photographs (Alexander 2003, 157). The photobook met with no obscenity charge, which was widely considered as a sign of loosened government censorship of obscenity. In just over two years after “the ban” was effectively lifted, “nude pictures showing pubic hair” already became too commonplace to be appealing, and publishers had to “resort to evermore outlandish gimmicks to earn space on bookshop shelves” (McCarthy 1994). In the various manga adaptations presenting stories based on JPM that were created since the 1990s, bokashi was no longer used to cover the characters’ private parts. It is an undeniable fact that manga has significantly expanded the reader base of JPM. Takezaki’s immensely successful manga adaptation first appeared in the form of the serialised publication in Manga Grimm Dowa, and its popularity soon led to its release in book format. When the eleventh volume of the book was published in May 2009, the publisher announced on the belly band that 400,000 copies of the manga had been sold (Takezaki 2009). In less than a year, the belly band of the thirteenth volume, which was published in April 2010, suggested that the sales figure had reached 500,000 copies (Takezaki 2010). As a popular and accessible format of popular culture, manga has its intrinsic advantage over textual translations of JPM in promoting the dissemination and reception of the story. It would also be a more effective way to inform the wider Japanese public of the content of JPM, since most would otherwise only know about the erotic reputation of the Chinese title. However, since the manga adaptations are necessarily appropriations rather than translations

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of the Chinese ST, readers may be misled as to the nature of the original. While they may realise this at a more general level, they would not be able to easily distinguish the manga authors’ creative rewriting from the ST elements in their reading. As a result, they may attribute their interpretations to the Chinese ST or the Chinese source culture. There is a more diverse range of sexual adventures between more characters in the manga than in the ST, and the type of horrific and fatal cruelty (e.g. in volume ten of Takezaki’s manga) between concubines that readers may consider as part of the polygamous culture of ancient China does not always originate from the Chinese novel. However, accuracy of the story or faithfulness to the ST is probably never the major concern of consumers of popular culture. The manga adaptations, therefore, should not be judged on the basis of how well they present their ST stories, but how well they interact with their respective target contexts and readerships.

6 Concluding Remarks There are other Japanese translations, adaptations and rewritings of JPM not discussed in this chapter. For example, Futaro Yamada (1922–2001), a well-known prolific author of ninja (Ninp¯och¯o series) and mystery stories, published two books adapted from the stories of JPM (Yamada 1970). In addition, Tomoyuki Tanaka (2018), an Associate Professor of Chinese literature at the University of Osaka, is currently working on another complete translation of JPM, with two out of three scheduled volumes having been published. This translation is supposed to be the most “complete” Japanese version of the Chinese novel, with the graphically explicit sexual description kept intact, and with comprehensive annotations informed by the translator’s decades of research. Due to JPM’s reputation as an erotic classic, its journey into Japanese is first and foremost conditioned by the attitude towards sexuality in the target culture, as reflected in the status of censorship at different historical periods. In other words, what is textual (i.e. textual features of translations) can always be interpreted by future generations of readers as sociocultural. Bakin’s puritanical removal of sexual descriptions speaks for the orthodoxy of Confucianism in the Edo period and Bakin’s own positioning as a moralist. The use of editorial symbols (such as × , O or ) to indicate objectionable words that have been omitted from the translations during the Taisho period testifies to the rigidity of censorship at the time. The absence of any JPM translations in the early Showa period (beginning in the mobilisation years of the late 1920s and continuing until Japan’s defeat in 1945) can be easily attributed to Japan’s focus on the nationalist war effort, when “obscenity was categorised by any image or written commentary not in alignment” with that effort (Hiltebeitel and Miller 1998, 198). In post-war Japan, the relatively conservative translations until the 1960s usually toned down the sexual content, but freer adaptations of JPM featuring more creative and explicit sexual descriptions emerged in the 1970s, 1980s and beyond, particularly in popular culture genres—firstly the pink film, and later the erotic manga. When examined diachronically, the different ways in which JPM were

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translated and adapted provide a clear historical timeline of the vicissitude of Japanese censorship of sexuality. Translations are therefore tied to their historical contexts, and translation products should be examined at once textually and contextually in order to more fully understand the processes and strategies of translation, adaptation and dissemination.

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Markus, Amftre z; setrmvr. 2020. The Willow in Autumn: Ryutei Tanehiko, 1783–1842. Leiden: Brill. Matsumura, Misao. 1882. 金瓶梅 [Jin Ping Mei]. Tokyo: Usagiya. McCarthy, Terry. 1994. Out of Japan: On a Matter of Pubic Concern. Independent. Accessed 20 October. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/out-of-japan-on-a-matter-of-pubic-con cern-1376517.html. Miyamoto, Shigeru. 2015. 官能小説でたどる戦後7 0年 [Sensuality Novels: 70 Years After the War]. With News. Accessed 10 October. https://withnews.jp/article/f0150611002qq00000000 0000000W01o0701qq000012109A. Mizukami, Shin. 2004. 金瓶梅· 奇伝炎のくちづけ [Another Story from JIN PING MEI]. Be× Boy Comics: Biblos. Murray, Jeremy A., Kathleen M. Nadeau, Jeremy Murray, and Kathleen Nadeau. 2016. Pop Culture in Asia and Oceania : Entertainment and Society Around the World. Westport: ABC-CLIO, LLC. Nagasawa, Kikuya. 1985. 長澤規矩也著作集 [The Collected Works of Kikuya Nagasawa]. 11 vols. Vol. 5. Tokyo: Kyuko Shoin. Nagata, Morihiro. 2018. 日本の官能小説の歴史 [History of Japanese sensuality novels]. P+D Magazines. Accessed 10 October. https://pdmagazine.jp/background/nagata-morihiro/. Nornes, Markus. 2014. The Pink Book: The Japanese Eroduction and its Contexts. Kinema Club. Ono, Shinobu, and Kuichi Chida. 1948. 金瓶梅 [Jin Ping Mei]. 4 vols. Vol. 1. Tokyo: Toho Shobu. ———. 1949. 金瓶梅 [Jin Ping Mei]. 4 vols. Vol. 3. Tokyo: Toho Shobu. ———. 1960. 金瓶梅 [Jin Ping Mei]. 3 vols. Tokyo: Heibonsha. ———. 1973. 金瓶梅 [Jin Ping Mei]. 10 vols. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten Ozaka, Tokuji. 1948. 完訳金瓶梅 [Complete Translation of Jin Ping Mei]. 4 vols. Vol. 1. Tokyo: Tozai Shuppansha. ———. 1949. 完訳金瓶梅 [Complete Translation of Jin Ping Mei]. 4 vols. Vol. 4. Tokyo: Tozai Shuppansha. Peters, Megan. 2021. Japan’s Manga and Comic Industry Hits Record Profits in 2020. Comic Book. Accessed 1 October. https://comicbook.com/anime/news/japan-manga-anime-industryprofit-2020-success/. Pineda, Rafael Antonio. 2015. Manga Was Almost 80% of Japan’s Digital Book Market. Anime News Network. Accessed 1 October. https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2015-01-12/ manga-was-almost-80-percent-of-japan-digital-book-market/.83186. Qi, Lintao. 2016. Agents of Latin: An Archival Research on Clement Egerton’s English translation of Jin Ping Mei. Target 28 (1): 42–60. ———. 2018. Jin Ping Mei English Translations: Texts, Paratexts and Contexts.Routledge Advances in Translation and Interpreting Studies. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. ———. 2021. Translating Sexuality in the Context of Anglo-American Censorship: The Case of Jin Ping Mei. Translation and Interpreting Studies 16 (3): 416–433. https://doi.org/10.1075/tis. 19010.qi. Rosenfeld, David M. 2002. Unhappy Soldier: Hino Ashihei and Japanese World War II Literature. Lanham: Lexington Books. Sensagent. 2021. 川上宗薫 [Muneshige Kawakami ]. Sensagent-dictionary. http://dictionary.sen sagent.com/%E5%B7%9D%E4%B8%8A%E5%AE%97%E8%96%AB/ja-ja/. Shimizu, Shin. 1972. 解說 [Commentary]. In 驹田信二の金瓶梅 [Shinji Komada’s version of Jin Ping Mei], ed. Shinji Komada, 311–316. Tokyo: Futami Shobo. Sims, Richard L. 2001. Japanese Political History Since the Meiji Renovation, 1868–2000. London: C. Hurst. Solt, John. 1990. Japan’s Censorious Censors and the Art of Eradicating Art. Agni (31/32): 42–49. Takezaki, Mami. 2004. 金瓶梅 [Jin Ping Mei]. Vol. 1. Horitsu: Bunkasha. ———. 2009. 金瓶梅 [Jin Ping Mei]. Vol. 11. Horitsu: Bunkasha. ———. 2010. 金瓶梅 [Jin Ping Mei]. Vol. 13. Horitsu: Bunkasha. Tanaka, Tomoyuki. 2018. 金瓶梅 [Jin Ping Mei]. Tokyo: Choeisha.

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Tokikuni, Yasuo. 1963. Obscenity and the Japanese Constitution. Kentucky Law Journal 51 (4): 703–710. Tokuda, Takeshi. 1987. 日本近世小説と 中国小説 [Japan’s Early Modern Novels and Chinese Novels]. Tokyo: Seish¯od¯o Shoten. Ueda, Gakuji. 1967. 金瓶梅 [Jin Ping Mei]. 4 vols. Vol. 1. Tokyo: Shinjinbutsu Oraisha von Siebold, Philipp Franz. 1897. Nippon: Archiv zur Beschreibung von Japan. Hofbuchhandlung von Leo Woerl: Verlag der K.U.K. Watanabe, Masako 1995. 金瓶梅 [Jin Ping Mei]. 13 vols. Vol. 1. Tokyo: Futabasha. Wong, Heung Wah, and HOi Yan Yau. 2020. Censorship in Japan. Taylor & Francis. Xia, Jinwei, and Masafumi Yamada. 1925. 全訳金瓶梅 [A Complete Translation of Jin Ping Mei]. Tokyo: K¯orind¯o Shoten. Xiaoxiaosheng, and Clement Egerton. 1939. The Golden Lotus: A Translation, from the Chinese Original, of the Novel Chin P’ing Mei. 4 vols. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Xiaoxiaosheng, and David Tod Roy. 1993. The Plum in the Golden Vase, or, Chin P’ing Mei. 5 vols. Vol. 1: The Gathering. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Yamada, Futaro. 1970. 妖異金瓶梅 [Demon-like Jin Ping Mei]. Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten. Yamagami, Tatsuhiko. 1988. 金瓶梅 [Jin Ping Mei]. Tokyo: Akita Shoten. Yang, Bin, and Jiana Wu. 2004. 中国古代小说与古代日本汉文小说 [Ancient Chinese Novels and Ancient Japanese Chinese -character Novels]. Journal of Jaingxi Normal University 37 (6): 52–57. Zhang, Yihong. 2012. 日本金瓶梅译介述评 An Overview of Japanese Translations of Jin Ping Mei. Japan Studies Akita Shoten 4: 117–121 Zhao, Ying. 2018. Three Japanese Translations of JPM in Post-war Japan. Masterpieces Review 8: 11–15. Zolbrod, Leon M. 1966. Takizawa Bakin, 1767–1848. A Restoration that Failed. Monumenta Nipponica 21 (1/2): 1–46.

Lintao Qi is a Lecturer in the Masters of Interpreting and Translation Studies at Monash University, Australia. His research interests include literary translation theory and practice, translation and cultural diplomacy, and sexuality and censorship in translation. He is the author of Jin Ping Mei English Translations: Texts, Paratexts, and Contexts (Routledge, 2018) and co-editor (with Leah Gerber) of A Century of Chinese Literature in Translation: English Publication and Reception (Routledge, 2020). Lintao has published widely in internationally recognized journals such as Target, Translation and Interpreting Studies, and Perspectives. He is a NAATI-certified translator and Co-editor of New Voices in Translation Studies. Shani Tobias is a Lecturer in the Master of Interpreting and Translation Studies at Monash University, Australia. Her PhD explored the translation of metaphor, and her recent publications and research interests encompass the cultural and stylistic aspects of literary translation, Japanese-English literary translation, and translator and interpreter pedagogy.

Typological Figuration of Mystical Elements in Jesuit Figurists’ Re-interpretation of Chinese Classics Sophie Ling-chia Wei

Abstract In this paper, the author focuses on one of the earliest groups of Sinologists, the Jesuit Figurists, particularly discussing how they translated mystical creatures and elements in Chinese classics, such as the dragon, dog, and Chinese mythological figures, in their typological exegesis as a tool of proselytization. Interestingly, in their translations into Latin, the Three Sovereigns 三皇 and Chinese mythological figures were depicted as biblical figures or figures from Greek and Roman mythology to parallel them with the biblical stories and narrow the cultural gap; and in the opposite linguistic direction, in their translations in Chinese manuscripts, the betrayal of Satan, the fall of Adam and Eve, and the emergence of Jesus were modeled as mystical creatures in Chinese classics, to lessen their foreignness. In addition, this paper will also focus on the space they borrowed from the Chinese classics and records of mythic geography, such as Shan Hai Jing 山海經 (The Classic of Mountains and Seas) and their purpose to create a new space that accommodated the histories and mythologies of both sides. Their translations of Chinese ancient mythologies came into play to broaden the European people’s understanding of Chinese culture, while their translations of biblical stories also opened the eyes of the emperor and the Chinese literati to a Chinese packaging of Christian stories. Keywords Figurists · Mythology · Biblical stories · Typological exegesis · Proselytization

1 Introduction Sinologists have long been at the forefront of cultural exchange between China and the West. In the process of intercultural exchange, early Sinologists also played the role of translators, translation being a necessary means of crossing cultural and linguistic borders. In this paper, the author focuses on one of the earliest groups of Sinologists, the Jesuit Figurists, particularly discussing how they translated mystical S. L. Wei (B) The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Qi and S. Tobias (eds.), Encountering China’s Past, New Frontiers in Translation Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0648-0_9

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creatures and elements in Chinese classics, such as the dragon, dog, and Chinese mythological figures, in their typological exegesis as tools of proselytization. Interestingly, in their translations into Latin, the Three Sovereigns 三皇 and Chinese mythological figures were depicted as biblical figures or figures from Greek and Roman mythology to show parallels with the biblical stories and narrow the cultural gap; and in the opposite linguistic direction, in their translations in Chinese manuscripts, the betrayal of Satan, the fall of Adam and Eve, and the emergence of Jesus were modeled as mystical creatures in Chinese classics, to lessen their foreignness. My examination and comparison of the Figurists’ Latin and Chinese manuscripts in this paper, different from past scholarship on the Jesuit Figurists, show their purposed inclination of re-telling the stories to cater to the needs of their target audience, including both the message and the format. In addition, this paper will also focus on the parallel they crafted between the biblical history and ancient Chinese legends, and the space they borrowed from the Chinese classics and records of mythic geography, such as Shan Hai Jing 山海經 (The Classic of Mountains and Seas), to create a new space that accommodated the histories and mythologies of both sides. Their establishment of Sinology may not only have begun with their studies of the Sishu 四書 (the Four Books) and the Wujing 五經 (the Five Classics), it may also have incorporated their readings and interpretations of the Chinese canons of mythology, geography, and mysteries.

2 Hermeticism and Mythology In the very beginning of the Jesuit mission in China, the Jesuits worked on translating the Four Books,1 employing them as tools for teaching Chinese to the new arrivals (Brockey 2009, 243–286). Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) also translated some of the Confucian classics. In his works, Ricci identified Tian 天 (Heaven) and Shangdi 上帝 (Lord above) from the Confucian classics, including the Four Books and the Book of Changes, with the Christian God. He indicated that “original” Confucianism, which had not been contaminated by later commentaries or heterodoxies like Buddhism and Daoism, contained a monotheistic concept in the name Shangdi. In Ricci’s Tianzhu Shi Yi 天主實義 (The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven), he cited many passages from the Chinese classics to promote compatibility between original Confucianism and Christian monotheism. He further used evidence from the Four Books and the Five Classics to support his argument. His accommodationist approach meant that, firstly, Ricci made Deus from the Bible more familiar to the Chinese and, secondly, that his and other Jesuit’s translations could make the Chinese classics appear more reasonable to Catholics, thus vindicating the Jesuits’ accommodation policy. 1

The Four Books, together with the Five Classics, are canons of Confucianism and share the same authoritative status. The Four Books comprise the Da Xue 大學 (the Great Learning), Zhong Yong 中庸 (Doctrine of the Mean), Lunyu 論語 (the Analects), and Mengzi 孟子 (the Works of Master Meng).

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However, Ricci’s assertion and translations were as dry tinder to the flames of the ensuing Chinese Rites Controversy, essentially a dispute among different orders of the Church over the name of God and the ritual practices surrounding the honoring of Confucius and ancestors (Rouleau 1967, 610–617). The first part of the Controversy revolved around the “term” question: whether any of the terms Tian, Di, or Shangdi were theologically equivalent to the Christian God. Secondly, the “ceremony” question was raised, which pertained to whether the ceremonies dedicated to Confucius and the ritual worship of ancestors were religious or only secular ceremonies. A further question was whether “Christians should be forbidden from participating in these ‘superstitious’ acts, or whether these acts should be regarded not contrary to Christian belief and therefore tolerated” (Standaert 2018, 53). Despite the use of Tian and Di and the esteem for ancestor worship leading to the Rites Controversy and internal conflict within the order of Jesuits and among the many orders of the Roman Catholic Church, the next generation of Jesuits in the early Qing dynasty, the Jesuit Figurists, though following the same trajectory, also explored further beyond the Four Books, which were the main sources for the accommodation policy of the first generation of Jesuits, to bridge East with West. A gray area formed in which the mystical traditions of ancient Chinese legends and the Bible stories from Christian tradition overlapped. In addition, (different Yins and Yangs of) the six positions in the Yi could make a composition. In antiquity, our great master picked the tangible forms between Heaven and Earth, which could be as small as our bodies and live in the modern times, and followed each disposition, comparing them with the words embedded with deep and mysterious symbols. (The symbols were) regarded as characters and compositions, which are hidden items leading people to exhaust the principles. (The symbols) detect the ancient relics and look for the hidden (messages), which reaches the ultimately spiritual and clear virtue of Shangzhu (the Lord above) and probes into nature and imitates the delicacy of his virtue. The efforts stop at the ultimate goodness and then preserve the greatness of the permanent life after one’s death. Classics such as the Shijing and Shujing, together with other ancient classics, whose Dao and studies are all based on the Great Yi. Their compositions, characters, and compounds are with hidden and mystic (messages). They must have the same principles as the Yi and they are no different. (又云易六位而成章,蓋古之先師,取天地之間有形,係現代身命之小,隨各類之情,比擬 蘊藏深奧印符之字,以為文為章,隱類率人窮理,探蹟索隱,鉤深致遠,通無窮上主至神至 明之德,盡性效法其至德之精微,止于至善而保身後永命之大。詩書等經,並諸古典籍, 其道其學,俱既本于大易,其章其文其字之隱藏深奧,與易亦必一揆而無不同。) (Bouvet Borg. Cin. 317. No. 2, 2. Author’s translation.)

The Jesuit Figurists are called Suoyin Pai Jiaoshi 索隱派教士 in Chinese. The above passage, from the second folio of the Yi Yao 易鑰 (The Yijing as the Keys to Christianity), may explain their approach to proselytizing in China, Suoyin 索 隱—seeking the mystical and hidden messages of God embedded in Chinese classics, especially the Yijing 易經 (the Book of Changes), which, in their eyes, is the origin and the basis of all the Chinese classics (Wei 2018, 3). The Figurists followed the footsteps of the previous Jesuits by adopting a strategy of accommodation and studied exhaustively the Chinese classics, especially the Yijing, but their proselytization approach began to shift from the Chinese literati to the Kangxi Emperor

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(1654–1722, reign: 1662–1722), in what became a top-down approach to Christianize the whole of China. Their Chinese manuscripts which they submitted to the emperor, who was their target audience, were imbued with associations between the stories of the Bible and the reinterpreted hexagrams, figures, and numbers from the Yijing and other Chinese classics. According to Claudia von Collani and other scholars, the Figurist approach to the Bible was based on three interpretive traditions within European theology (Collani 2001, 668–679): (1) typological exegesis, designed to reveal hidden meanings in the Old Testament that unlocked the mysteries of the New Testament; (2) “ancient theology” (prisca theologia), predicated upon the idea of a divine revelation by pagan saints (including Melchizedek, the Queen of Sheba, the Three Wise Men from the East, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Orpheus, Zoroaster, and others); and (3) the Jewish mystical tradition of the Kabbala, which, during the Renaissance, had produced, among its various permutations, a Judeo-Christian version that drew upon Ancient Theology and Neoplatonism. First, the Figurists were using typological strategies to explain their belief that the Hebrew Bible was the true original scripture for all of human history, and that the mythological and historical events in Chinese texts act as symbols for later events—in other words, they were scriptural types (Wei 2019, 44–45) or pre-figuration of Jesus Christ and other figures in biblical stories. The typological exegesis in the leading Figurist Joachim Bouvet’s (1656–1730) reinterpretation of the Chinese classics aimed not only to reveal hidden meanings in the Old Testament, but also to link the theological symbolism of Adam, Jesuit Christ, and even Satan, with the figures and symbols in Chinese classics, such as the Yijing. In addition to the Jesuit Figurists’ typological exegesis, what the Jesuit Figurists were seeking is Prisca Theologia. With the revival of Neoplatonism in fourteenthcentury Christian contexts, a group of philosophers reignited interest in the polytheistic model of religion, not just Christian monotheism. In the West, the term prisca theologia appears to have been used first by Marsilio Ficino, a fifteenth century reviver of Neoplatonism in touch with the major academics of his day and the first translator of Plato’s complete extant works into Latin (Voss 2006, ix–x). Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola tried to reform the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church based on the writings of the prisca theologia, which they believed was reflected in Neoplatonism, Hermeticism, and the Chaldean Oracles, among other sources (Wei 2019, 11). The combination of Neoplatonism, Hermeticism, and prisca theologia that became so influential in Renaissance esotericism was a result of the reintroduction of the Corpus Hermeticum into western European culture (Stuckrad 2010, 30). Hermeticism thus became the bridge between accommodation in China and the assimilation of information about China in Europe. Traditions derived from prisca theologia, such as Hermeticism, flourished during the Renaissance and Reformation in the West; it attempted to locate traces of the purest perception of God and the universe. Pagan religious practices were also accepted, such as the veneration of images and the analysis of hieroglyphs of ancient Egyptian languages, in order to defy the dominance of pure rationality or doctrinal faith (Wei 2019, 12). The best examples of which lie in the works of the predecessor of the Jesuit Figurists, Athanasius Kircher,

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who associated the Egyptian hieroglyphs with Chinese characters and linked Greek mythology with polytheism in Chinese folk religions. In his monumental work, the China Illustrata, he describes Chinese culture as a derivative of Egyptian, though only its pale imitation. For example, he compares the temples worshipping the Long Wang 龍王 (Dragon King), Wangmu Niangniang 王母娘娘 (Goddess the Queen Mother), and Yu Huang Dadi 玉皇大帝 (The Great Emperor of Jade), with temples consecrated to the deities of the Egyptian and Greek pantheons (Kircher 1667, 123– 124). One illustration in the China Illustrata was intended as a depiction of the Sanqing Daozu 三清道祖 (the Three Pure Ones, the three highest gods in Daoism). However, due to the lack of understanding, Kircher identified the one standing in the middle as Sakyamuni 釋迦牟尼 and regarded him as the equivalent of Jupiter, the supreme god in the ancient Roman pantheon. According to Kircher’s explanation, Sakyamuni was flanked by Laozi 老子and Confucius, and accompanied by a group of deities equivalent to Neptune, Vulcan, and so on (ibid., 126–127). In addition to the parallel with the deities in ancient Egyptian and Roman mythology, Chinese mythological elements and creatures were also incorporated in Kircher’s works, but with a sneer. Mythical mountain homes of dragons and tigers were mocked for being mistakenly used for divination by Buddhist monks; auspicious signs, such as the phoenix, were regarded as symbols transplanted from India (ibid., 166, 189). Kircher received this great collection of Chinese deities directly from missionaries proselytizing in China, but he was never personally involved in their work. Though his hermetic views contradicted the Jesuits in China, his hermetic interpretation of Chinese characters, symbols, and mythological tradition may have acted as inspiration for the group of Jesuit Figurists, as that very obsession with symbols was a common feature in the Figurists’ works. Living in China, the Jesuit Figurists studied assiduously the ancient Chinese classics to seek esoteric messages and to parallel Chinese mythological figures with the mystical creatures or gods from Greco-Roman or Biblical mythology, with the aims of re-establishing a consistent history between the two sides and justifying their mission in China. According to Nicolas Standaert and David Mungello, their strategy did not regard these figures as historical, but rather heuristic devices for symbolic theology (Mungello 2019, 29–35; also see Standaert 2016, 116–150). Therefore, it is understandable that there are two sides to the histories told by the Jesuit Figurists. On the one hand, in their Latin translation of mythical Chinese legends, the Figurists always paralleled the mystical figures and creatures of ancient Chinese history with the divine figures of Greco-Roman mythology, in order to prove that the Chinese shared the same historical origin. On the other hand, when following these traditions and traveling to China in search of prisca theologia, the Jesuit Figurists also employed Chinese packaging on Western mythological elements to attract attention from Chinese readers in the imperial court. In spite of two different packagings—Chinese legends Westernized and biblical figures Sinicized— for different readers, in their translations and re-interpretations, there remained a singular purpose: the Jesuit Figurists tried to parallel ancient Chinese legends with the symbols and figures from biblical stories and to re-create a new shared time and shared space for East and West.

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Fig. 1 Bouvet Manuscript no. NAL 1173, stored in Bibliothèque nationale de France, f. 155

3 Juxtaposition in the Figurists’ Latin Translations To understand the side of the story that the Figurists told Western readers, it is necessary to examine their Latin manuscript translations. In the manuscript Mémoires sur le rapport des anciennes croyances des Chinois avec les traditions bibliques et chrétiennes (Memoirs on the Relationship of Ancient Chinese Beliefs with Biblical and Christian Traditions) (Bouvet, Manuscript no. NAL 1173, stored in Bibliothèque nationale de France), Bouvet translated Chinese mythologies described in Chinese history and classics and drew parallels between them and the Western mythological figures in his illustrated manuscripts. As early Sinologists, the Figurists tried to explain ancient Chinese history to Western readers. In his own process, Bouvet usually listed the Chinese sources of his translations on the margin of the Latin manuscripts. The sea of quotations showed his exhaustive scholarship in Chinese classics while also vindicating the close parallels between the quoted passages and the mystical creatures or deities of the West. The scope of the quoted classics spanned from authoritative classics, such as the Shijing 詩經 (The Book of Poetry), Chunqiu 春秋 (The Spring and Autumn Annals), Xiaojing 孝經 (The Book on Filial Piety), and Yizhuan 易傳 (The Commentaries on the Yijing), to histories and chronicles, such as the Gang Jian 綱鑑 (The Brief History), Hanshu Tianwen Zhi 漢書天文志 (Treatise on Astronomy of the Official Dynastic History of the Former Han Dynasty), Songshu Furui Zhi 宋書符瑞志 (Treatise on Auspicious Signs and Omens of the Official Dynastic History of the Song Dynasty), and even to records of mystical events and creatures, such as the Shiyiji 拾遺記 (Records of Picked-up Leftovers),2 Huainanzi 淮南子 (Works of Masters from Huainan), and Chun Qiu Gan Jing Fu 春 秋感精符 (The Annals of Spring and Autumn: Token of Bestirred Essences), as well as many others. Bouvet employed such excavated evidence to try to prove that these classics and records were misdated texts, and that Chinese mythological figures were actually biblical figures, only with different names. This juxtaposition (see Fig. 1) also serves as a visual proof of their exhaustive studies.

It is a collection of mystic stories compiled by Wang Jia 王嘉 in the Eastern Jin period 東晉 (317–420). 2

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What is more interesting is that, throughout the pages of illustrations, the juxtaposition of both Chinese sources and Western mythological figures (See Fig. 2) repeats over and again. Western readers likely do not know the meaning of the Chinese sources in the margins, and the Figurists may have just written them down for their own reference. However, with illustrations of these figures in the center as well as the handwritten Chinese sources, the layout was aimed to remind the Western readers that the authority of their translation could be verified by the sources/originals on the side. The manuscripts might have been submitted to the other Fathers in the Roman Catholic Church for further review and censorship. Interestingly, in Joseph Henri-Marie Prémare’s (1666–1736) Selecta quaedam Vestigia praecipuorum Christianae relligionis dogmatum ex antiquis Sinarum Libris Eruta (Certain Selected Vestiges of Principal Christian Religious Teachings Extracted from Ancient Chinese Books), juxtaposition is also a common feature. It is a large manuscript of 329 folio sheets which incorporate citations from miscellaneous ancient Chinese works. Many of the sheets have writing on both sides with the Latin text on the recto side of the sheet and the Chinese citations on the verso, although sometimes the Latin and Chinese are intermixed (Mungello 2019, 45). This manuscript not only explains the association between the Chinese classics and Christianity, but also retells the biblical stories of the fall of Lucifer and Adam and Chinese legends which, he believed, symbolized the salvation of Jesus Christ. Learning from Bouvet, Prémare was also a learned and versatile Jesuit missionary with a great command of Classical and vernacular Chinese. His sources not only include the Confucian canon, but also Daoist works: Laozi’s Daodejing 老子道德 經 (the Way and the Power), the Zhuangzi 莊子 (Work of Master Zhuang), Guanyinzi 關尹子 (also known as Wenshi Zhenjing 文始真經 or The True Scripture of the [Master of] the Beginning of Scripture), Liezi 列子 (the Work of Master Lie), and Huainanzi. Other passages from the Zhouli 周禮 (Rites of Zhou), the Yili 儀禮 (Rites of Yi), several chapters from the Liji 禮記 (Record of Rites), the Shan Hai Jing, and the Erya 爾雅 (The Ready Guide, a dictionary-like glossary from the Han period) were also quoted for his use of theological symbolism. The juxtaposition became a signature feature of the written space in the Figurists’ manuscripts. Not only did it showcase the Figurists’ relentless efforts and exhaustive research on the Chinese classics and legends, but also presented a communal space to explain the compatibility between the mythological elements of Chinese legends and the stories of the Bible, as well as their inter-connections.

4 Translation of Chinese Mythology In Joachim Bouvet’s Latin manuscript translations, there are many interesting examples of identifying Chinese mythological figures with those from Greek and Roman mythology. The figures in Greek and Roman mythology are always in the center of the illustrations, to draw the interest of Western readers, while blocks of quotations concerning descriptions of Chinese mythological figures were given on the margin.

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Fig. 2 Bouvet Manuscript no. NAL 1173, stored in Bibliothèque nationale de France, f. 172

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Given below is its translation in Latin. The first example is the image from Fig. 2, Typhon. In Greek mythology, Typhon, also spelled Typhaon, or Typhoeus, was the youngest son of Gaea (Earth) and Tartarus (of the nether world). He was described as a monstrous serpentine giant and one of the deadliest creatures of Greek mythology; he was struck by Zeus’ thunderbolt on the mountain Caucasus, conquered and cast into the underworld. In his Latin translation, Bouvet first described Typhon as nothing other than the power of the winds, by which water is dried up to nothing and the land sterilized. According to Bouvet, what is identified with Typhon was Gonggong 共工. According to the Shan Hai Jing, Gonggong was a descendant of Yan Di 炎帝 (the Yan Emperor or the Flame Emperor). He was born in the Yangtze River and had the face of a human but the body of a snake and red hair. The serpentine shape may have drawn Bouvet to delve into the ancient classics to unearth similar descriptions. Bouvet then started to translate the passages he quoted from Chinese classics and records. One passage he translated included the one in the Huai Nan Hong Lie Ji Jie 淮南鴻烈集解 (Collected Commentaries on the Great Work of Huai Nan), and it is described that “Gonggong is a heavenly creature with a serpentine face and a human body.”3 Furthermore, Typhon was also identified with Feng Bo 風伯 (the god of Winds) in the Gang Jian,4 in which it is described that the God of Winds could destroy the homes of the people. Fangfeng 防風 was also cited from the Guoyu 國語 (Discourses of the States), described as a character from Chinese mythology as well as having been worshiped as a deity in popular Chinese religion. His depiction was always as a mystical creature with the head of a dragon, ears of a bull, a unibrow, and one eye.5 The juxtaposition of the Chinese sources and translations as well as the illustrations indeed lured the Western reader to associate Typhon with Gonggong, Feng Bo, and Fangfeng. The main purpose of Bouvet’s approach is to draw the two sides, the East and the West, closer in the parallel of mythical figures. In Bouvet’s eyes, those mythical figures might be the same ones, only with different aliases. Following Bouvet’s Figurist approach and interpretation, two of his disciples, Jean François Foucquet (1665–1741) and Prémare, drew parallels between the image of Gonggong and that of Satan. After entering China and being assigned by the Kangxi Emperor to assist Bouvet in 1711, Foucquet followed his passion for spreading Christianity in China. In Peking, Foucquet was ordered by his superiors to devote more of his time to the study of astronomy, which distracted him from assisting Bouvet and from his own work on Figurism. At the same time, responding to interests and pressures of the Kangxi Emperor, Foucquet wrote several astronomical and mathematical treatises. He made full use of such astronomical expertise in the rewriting and translation of Chinese legends. Another manuscript I found in the Bibliothèque nationale de France shows Foucquet’s efforts in paralleling the Chinese constellations with Western zodiac signs and biblical stories. In his Hémisphère céleste boréal avec légende en chinois et annotations manuscrites en latin (Northern celestial hemisphere with legend in Chinese and handwritten annotations in Latin) (Foucquet, Manuscript In Chinese, it is 共工天神也, 蛇面人身生於離. In Chinese, it is 大風風伯天神, 也能壞人屋舍. 5 In Chinese, it is 龍首牛耳, 連眉一目. 3 4

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no. GE C-16348, stored in Bibliothèque nationale de France), Foucquet used the same approach of typological exegesis to treat the figures from Chinese legends as pre-figurations or prophecies of figures from the Bible. For example, the fall of Lucifer was compared to Gonggong from Chinese ancient mythical legends. “Cum cum (共工) has a broken axis of itself; to have become the first founder (bringer) of the disorder of arms and wars, and to have brought out the first flood in the world into the universal destruction of humans” (my translation from Latin, ibid.). Lucifer and Gonggong both became symbols of Satan. Thus, in Foucquet’s typological figuration, Chinese mythology was extended to the space in the celestial map of the Northern Hemisphere and was paralleled with stories from the Bible. In his Selecta quaedam Vestigia praecipuorum Christianae relligionis dogmatum ex antiquis Sinarum Libris Eruta, Prémare also translated Gonggong as “Satan” from the Bible. During the five years 1703–1708, Prémare and Bouvet had an extensive correspondence, and undoubtedly Prémare, one of Bouvet’s protégés, also received influence from Bouvet and interpreted mythological gods as manifestations of figures in the Bible. Prémare quoted the Zi Zhi Tong Jian Wai Ji 資治通鑑外紀 (Additional Chronicle to the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government) by Liu Shu 劉恕 (1032–1078), which says, “Gonggong fought with Zhu Rong 祝融. Conquered and trembling with anger, he struck his head against mount Buzhou” and caused the sky to fall (Prémare Chinois 9248, f. 77(3) r–78v; also see Mungello 2019, 74). According to Prémare, the defeat of Gonggong symbolized the fall of Satan. Another Chinese mythological figure in ancient history presented by Bouvet is Fuxi. In the manuscript Mémoires sur le rapport des anciennes croyances des Chinois avec les traditions bibliques et chrétiennes (Memoirs on the Relationship of Ancient Chinese Beliefs with Biblical and Christian Traditions), quotations from the Tushu Bian 圖書編 (Compilation of Illustrations and Texts), Gang Jian, Shiji 史記 (Records of the Great Historian), and Yi Zhuan, were stated to describe the sublime status of Fuxi as the first of the Three Sovereigns at the beginning of the Chinese dynastic period (Wei 2019, 74). Gang Jian, Lu Shi 路史 (Grand History), and Liushu Jingyun 六書精蘊 (The Collected Basic Principles of Six Methods) were especially cited to demonstrate Fuxi’s supreme status as the teacher of husbandry and the maker of the Eight Trigrams of the Yijing. In the margin of the manuscripts, providing also calculations of a possible time and period when Fuxi lived in the antiquity of China, Bouvet presented the author of all hieroglyphic Chinese characters in Chinese literature, Fuxi, as a universal figure from the Biblical tradition, that is: the holy patriarch and prophet Enoch (Bouvet Manuscript no. NAL 1173, stored in Bibliothèque nationale de France, f. 66 and 86). As shown in Fig. 3 (ibid., f. 194), Bouvet further analyzed the character, fu 伏 of the name Fuxi 伏羲. It was composed by two parts, gin 人 (Bouvet’s spelling for ren, man) on the left and kiuen 犬 (Bouvet’s spelling of quan, dog) on the right. By deconstructing this character, Bouvet explained, along with illustrations, that Fuxi was actually a sovereign with a human body and dog’s head, which corresponds to the descriptions of Hermes Trismegistus, who was also identified with Enoch, a correlation also drawn by Athanasius Kircher. What is more, Bouvet also indicated that the image of Hermes Trismegistus was a representation of Anubis, the conductor of the soul from Egyptian mythology.

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Fig. 3 Bouvet Manuscript no. NAL 1173, stored in Bibliothèque nationale de France, f. 194

Hermes, or Mercury, is the name used in the Greco-Roman mythological tradition for the messenger, the god of swift foot, god of merchants, and the conductor of souls. During the Hellenistic period, the two traditions were mixed to produce Hermanubis by joining the Egyptian Anubis with the Greek Hermes (as they are both conductors of souls, the ones who bring the souls of deceased to the underworld). The picture is obviously a vivid example of combining these three traditions, Chinese, Egyptian, and Greco-Roman mythological traditions. The above examples actually proved the spirit of Figurism in China: all pagan theists are monotheists and all of the world’s religious traditions, including Chinese religions, history, and legends, share one single origin. In addition, Hermes Trismegistus was put at the center of the left side of the manuscript while on the right side of the manuscript was placed Bouvet’s anatomy of Chinese characters. Several passages were also translated by Bouvet to emphasize that Fuxi indeed enjoyed the same supreme status as Hermes Trismegistus. For example, passages from the Zhouyi Shu 周易疏 (An Exposition of the Zhouyi) and Lushi were excerpted to explain that Fuxi is the Emperor/Lord in Di chu yu Zhen 帝出于震 (the Lord comes from Zhen).6 Di chu yu Zhen 帝出于震 This sentence is originally from Shuo Gua Zhuan 說卦傳 (The Commentaries of Explaining the Trigrams) in the Yijing.

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was first quoted by Matteo Ricci to indicate that the Di 帝 in this phrase was another appellation for the Christian God; later, the Jesuit Figurists, who studied deeply into the Yijing, also frequently cited Di chu yu Zhen 帝出于震 as God. Here, in this batch of the manuscripts might be the first time Bouvet employed this quote to imply that Di 帝 is Fuxi in Latin. Between the image of Hermes Trismegistus and the display of the Chinese character fu 伏, there is a Hermetic Cross (crux hermetica). Bouvet explained that four deities are drawn in four ends of the cross according to four regional cardinals of the world, with six deities hidden in the middle of the earth and cross, which respond to the six mystic emperors of the sacred and symbolic Chinese chronicles. On this page of illustrations full of hermetic messages, it is seen that Bouvet also provided in the blank spaces some calculations of the years from Fuxi at the beginning of the world until the day of the ascension of the Jesus Christ. Such typological exegesis was employed by the Jesuit Figurists to parallel the figures and heroes in Chinese history with those in biblical chronology. During his trip back to France, Bouvet carried manuscripts—312 stitched fascicles, covering 22 titles—to the Royal Library in Paris (Standaert 2015, 419). His two protégés also worked on their manuscript translations. This group of Jesuit Figurists employed what they called “misdated texts” in China. Their basic premise was founded on the history stated in the Bible that all people on Earth are the descendants of Noah after the flood. The flood in Chinese history was associated with the Flood of the Bible; Chinese people were thought to be the descendants of Shem, the eldest son of Noah. In Bouvet’s interpretation, the images of sages and heroes, such as Yao 堯, were compared to Jesus Christ as a xim gin 聖人 (Bouvet’s Romanization; the current Romanization: sheng ren). The pronunciation of Yao was also ´ or Iehovah of the Jews. The similar compared to the pronunciation of Jesus: „αω pronunciation also prompted Bouvet to interpret that Yao was not a historical figure in Chinese history, but a symbol and the pre-figuration of Jesus Christ. Prémare, in his manuscripts, agreed with Bouvet that the flood has symbolic meaning. In this interpretation, the flood represented the sins and crimes deriving from the rebellion of Lucifer and of Adam which spread throughout the world as malevolent and injurious water (Mungello 2019, 36). Used as heuristic devices for symbolic theology, their parallel with Chinese mythological figures and the figures in the Bible or in Greek and Roman mythology demonstrated their never-ending efforts in locating evidence in Chinese classics and matching the mystical figures of both sides, to prove their compatibility. Their controversial approach also led to debates about chronologies of historical events in China and in the West.

5 Manuscripts for the Other Side of the Story Now, for the other side of the story—the Chinese manuscripts. The Figurists demonstrated their assiduous studies and evidential scholarship on Chinese manuscripts submitted to the Kangxi Emperor. As the founder of Figurism in China, Bouvet

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especially directed his efforts at writing manuscripts with Chinese brush and calligraphy, since it would attract the emperor’s attention. Among the manuscripts, the Da Yi Yuan Yi Nei Pian 大易原義內篇 (The Inner Chapter of the Original Meaning of the Great Yi) and Yi Gao 易稿 (Drafts of Yi) are his re-interpretations of the first twelve hexagrams of the Yijing and are the result of his work with assistance provided by Foucquet. The format of the two was in imitation of the Chinese literati’s format for commentaries, with hexagram lines 卦辭 (the Judgment) given at the forefront and the nei yi gang 內意綱 (the main points) at the secondary level, which was a short paragraph explaining the association between the Yijing line and God or the Holy Son. In the next level, Bouvet assumed the role as a commenter-literatus in elaborating on the association and parallel between the biblical figures, such as Adam, Eve, and Jesus, and the related symbols and numbers in the hexagrams, which he believed could be theologically interpreted. For example, the Hidden Dragon, the yang line at the beginning place of Qian 乾 (the Creative), could be the Savior who waited for the right moment, while Satan was symbolized by the Arrogant Dragon, the yang line at the top place of Qian 乾. In the following section, the mystical elements employed by Bouvet in Chinese manuscripts are also discussed.

6 Translation of Biblical Stories Still on the other side of the story, mystical creatures, such as the dragon and tiger in some of the classics, well known to the Chinese readers, were also employed by the Jesuit Figurists to imply the coming of Jesus or the fall of Satan. Long 龍 (Dragon) was also included in the Jesuit Figurists’ re-invention of these auspicious signs and symbols. Unlike the giant-winged, lizard-like, fire-breathing Western dragon with wedge-shaped head and thick, rudder-like tail, long in Chinese culture have always been esteemed as a most auspicious animal and described as having supernatural powers to govern natural phenomena, such as rain-making and thundering. The mythological symbol of the long harbored the supernatural power to dominate people’s lives. It was even a symbol of the Zhen Ming Tianzi 真命天子 (the true Son of Heaven) (Li 2015, 444). The earliest long in writing appeared in divine inscriptions craved on bones and shells in the Shang dynasty (Wilson 1990, 291). The inscriptions showed that the Shang people prayed to long to make wishes, for insights into the weather, or for protection against catastrophes through divination. The mythological figure of a lively long also came to life in the six lines of the first Hexagram, Qian 乾 (the Creative), of the Yijing (Wilhelm 1977, 57–62). Long can be hidden to avoid imminent mishap or can appear in the field or fly in Heaven when its ability and talents can be seen and utilized. Or when the time is not appropriate, for the yang line in the top place, the Kang Long 亢龍 (Arrogant Dragon) should also have regrets because its arrogance will not help it prevail for long. The Yijing as a divinatory book not only depicts the changeability of the long but also demonstrates that in order to achieve the best outcome and obtain good fortune, the superior man or sage must take actions or have a recess in accordance with the right

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time. Therefore, the long is not only a symbol with mythological power to control or foresee the weather, but one that also indicates how human beings should go abreast of the course of nature and how they can position themselves between Heaven and Earth. The first translation of the Chinese long into a European language might be seen in the Portuguese-Chinese dictionary compiled by Matteo Ricci and Michele Ruggieri (1543–1607) (Li 2015, 456). Their first encounter with this mythological symbol perplexed them; searching for an appropriate translation, they reached their wit’s end. Looking to the Han Feizi 韓非子 (Master of Han Fei) and Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字 (Explaining Graphs and Analyzing Characters) for aid, they categorized long into the genus bicho/bichinho and combined it with serpens as an explanation (ibid.). The compound word bicha-serpens, meaning “big-serpent-shaped worm,” was thus formed in their dictionary. This first encounter did not involve any mythical interpretation or connection with the Bible stories. However, in the Jesuit Figurists’ intralingual translation of the Yijing in their written manuscripts, the Chinese long was turned into two opposite images. On the one hand, it depicts the sagely image of Jesus Christ as the junzi 君子 (the superior man; the sage). On the other hand, it could be represented as the evil symbol of Satan. In the Da Yi Yuan Yi Nei Pian and Yi Gao, Bouvet retells the stories of Christianity and depicts God and the Holy Son as embodying the description and personality of the junzi from the Yijing. When Shangzhu (the Lord above) first created Heaven, Earth and divine mankind, the merits of Pre-Heaven were accomplished after six days. From this beginning till the period of rebuilding and saving the world, the merits of Latter Heaven were also accomplished after six days. This is based on the Tianzhu Bible (the Bible of the Lord above); for Latter Heaven, it took one thousand years for one day (to pass in heaven). The course of Qian is run by six dragons for six thousand years, based on the course of Qian. It completes six cycles, and then each of the six stages completes itself in its own time. (上主初造天地神人,先天之功,六日而成。自厥初至于再造捄世之期,後天之功,亦六日 而成。蓋據天主聖經,後天以一千年為一日,乾道六龍運行,乃天運六千年,始終六周,六 位時成 。) (Bouvet Borg. Cin. 317. No. 9, 5. Author’s translation)

Originally, the six lines/places of Qian in the ancient canon of the Yijing were interpreted by the Confucianists and Chinese literati as meaning that the junzi or the sage always acts at the time appropriate to his service. In this quoted example, however, the six thousand years before the Savior sacrificed himself were separated into six stages in accordance with the stories in Christianity. In these stages, the Savior was turned into a hidden dragon, dragon in the field, dragon with care, dragon flying over the depths, and flying dragon in the heavens. Bouvet also indicated in his commentaries that the yang line in the top place 上九, “Arrogant Dragon will have caused to repent” (ibid.), referred to Kang Long, a proud and arrogant rebel in Heaven. At the final moment of the six thousand years, the Holy Son was willing to sacrifice his life to save the lives of people for all time. In Bouvet’s re-interpretation, the symbol of the two dragons was transformed into the fight between Jesus Christ and Satan, the latter of which symbolized by Kang Long. The rebel, Kang Long, here was turned into the Black and Evil Dragon, who

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fought with the Divine Dragon, which symbolized Jesus Christ. One is ascending while the other is falling; one is humble while the other is arrogant; one is persevering in good deeds while the other is unbridled in evil; one is benevolent while the other is cruel; one is purely righteous while the other is purely malevolent (Bouvet Borg. Cin. 317. No. 9, 22–23; also see Wei 2019, 46). The auspicious and humble dragon becomes a type of Jesus while the arrogant dragon is a symbol of Satan in Bouvet’s rewriting and his intralingual translations. The symbol of the divine dragon and evil dragon has been repeatedly employed in Bouvet’s Chinese manuscripts to illustrate that the emergence of Jesus and Satan had been pronounced in the antiquity of China and was even imbedded in the esoteric Chinese classic, the Yijing. In addition to the yang line at the top place 上九 of Qian 乾 (the Creative) being taken to depict the Arrogant Dragon as a symbol of Satan, a description of a tiger with a human face and nine tails from the Shan Hai Jing was borrowed to illustrate Satan’s vileness, vengeance, and maliciousness (Bouvet Borg. Cin. 317. No. 9, 3). What is more, the Hexagram Lüˇ 履 (Treading) originally showed that one should respect ranking and priority while serving the superior man. If the inferior is not cautious or impolite, the superior man may bite back, like a tiger. In the Yi Gao, Bouvet translated Jesus as more cautious than his reckless ancestor, Adam, just like walking after the tail of the vicious tiger (the meaning and the image of the Hexagram Lüˇ 履), Satan, and his goodness helped him weather dangers (Bouvet Borg. Cin. 317. No. 7, 27). The vicious tiger became another synonym of Satan. Furthermore, in his intralingual translation of Tai 泰 (Peace), Bouvet also described the special features of Satan. However, the highest of all angels (Satan) prided himself on his conceited brilliance and boasted of his superiority as the highest-ranked angel. He was eclipsed by his spurious virtue. He was so arrogant that he planned to usurp the supreme throne of the Holy Triune Lord above. He led one third of the Angels of three spheres and nine orders, all of whom were arrogant and malignant. They followed one another, like the three yin lines, ; (the image was like) they were flying like birds flapping their wings together. The three Yin lines below crossed the line and worked in tandem to attack the One Three Triune Lord above, facing the justified anger of Shangzhu (the Lord above). The image of three-three (三三) in the three yin lines symbolized their wings flapping and falling altogether like a thunderbolt. Then they were transformed into the sinister evil who flew low in the dark of night and who were the malicious demons with three yin lines of vicious light and sheer evil. In the texts and illustrations of the Shan Hai Jing (The Classic of Mountains and Seas), those deviant creatures who were documented as the ones with three heads, three horns, three eyes, or three multiplied by three, nine tails, and so on—these are the images (of Satan). (然天神之首,妄依厥德之明, 妄恃厥天神元首之位, 因而昏其明德而陰暗。亢傲謀篡惟 一上主聖三至尊之位, 領三界九部天神少半, 同傲陰暗,相從三三翩翩, 下陰三三 , 越分同篡攻上一三 之主, 干上主之義怒, 三三翩翩,迅雷一齊隕下, 变為暗夜低飛,惡 光純惡三陰之凶魔。 《山海經》一部之文圖,凡所錄三首、三角、三目、三三、九尾等 乖戾之物,皆其象也。) (Bouvet Borg. Cin. 317. No. 7, 33. Author’s translation)

In Bouvet’s rewriting of the hexagram Tai 泰, the Shan Hai Jing was once again quoted to specify that three heads, three horns, three eyes, and nine tails are all characteristics of Satan. In this way, the rewriting and the intralingual translation of

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the Yijing turned into a source book, in which the encoded messages were left by the Christian God and linked with the stories of the Bible.

7 A New Shared Space In Bouvet’s manuscript translation of the Bible stories in Yi Yin 易引 (The Introduction to Yi), the quotations from Chinese sources are always interstitially added as evidence that similar figures had existed in ancient Chinese history or that similar scenarios had occurred. Aside from quoting from the Four Books and the Five Classics, mystical classics, such as Shan Hai Jing, were also frequently quoted by Bouvet as proof that the places mentioned in these classics were in the proximity of those in the Bible. The Shan Hai Jing is a compilation of mythic geography and Chinese myths. It is largely a fabulous geographical and cultural account of pre-Qin China as well as a collection of the mythical figures, rituals, medicine, natural history, and ethnic peoples of the ancient world. While the Shan Hai Jing leaves mysterious puzzles for Chinese readers, who questioned whether the eerie beings with strange forms really inhabited remote mountains, forests, rivers, and lakes, Bouvet’s translation seemed to give an answer and create a new shared space for East and West. In the Yi Yin Yuan Gao 易引原稿 (Bouvet Borg. Cin. 317. No. 6, 21), the Long Life Tree 長生樹in the Shan Hai Jing was mentioned to make a connection to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil from the Bible. In addition, in Bouvet’s Latin translation, one passage of Shan Hai Jing was also quoted and translated, In the past, the flood inundated and spread through China. People were left no room to advance or to retreat. They evacuated to the hills and nested in the trees. 昔洪水洋溢, 漫衍中國, 民人失據, 崎嶇于丘陵, 巢於樹木。 (Bouvet Manuscript no. NAL 1173, stored in Bibliothèque nationale de France, f. 166. Author’s translation)

The quotation corresponds with the Figurists’ basic premise in the interpretation of Chinese history and the historical events of the Bible. The Figurists argued that the two traditions shared one common origin, which could be traced back to the Bible: some locations from the Bible, such as the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, could be transformed into some similar symbol of a location from Chinese legends. The flood in China could be paralleled with the Flood of the Bible and the Chinese people with the descendants of Noah. The Shan Hai Jing was thus turned into an important proselytization tool in the Figurists’ re-interpretation and re-telling of the stories on both sides. Prémare also quoted extensively and borrowed the space from the Shan Hai Jing. He presented the Kunlun Mountain in Shan Hai Jing as a parallel with the Biblical Garden of Eden and “he turned the Kunlun Mountain as the cosmic axis (axis mundi)

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or center of the world where the sky connects with the earth” (Mungello 2019, 68– 69). In the middle of the terrestrial garden is where the fountain of immortality originates (Prémare Manuscripts stored in Bibliothèque nationale de France. Shelf Mark Chinois 9248, 65). With Kunlun Mountain’s religious, mythological, and geographical significance in Buddhism and Chinese folk religions, Prémare also adopted this syncretic approach and created a shared space among Chinese religions and Christianity, and his signature approach showcased the school of Hermeticism and Neoplatonism the Figurists had always adhered to.

8 Concluding Remarks Among the Jesuits in early Qing China, Joachim Bouvet and a group of missionaries, including Jean-François Fouquet, Joseph Henri-Marie de Prémare, and Jean-Alexis de Gollet 郭中傳 (1664–1741), all of whom followed Bouvet’s Figurism, produced an in-depth analysis and interpretation of the Yijing. Bouvet soon gained the trust of the Kangxi Emperor and taught him geometry and mathematics. Even the Kangxi Emperor praised Bouvet for his deep understanding of Chinese classics. After all, they (the Jesuits) only know a fraction of what I know, and none of the Westerners is really conversant with Chinese literature—except perhaps for the Jesuit Bouvet, who has read a great deal, and developed the ability to undertake serious study of the Book of Changes. (Spence 1989, 145–146)

Thus, we know that the Kangxi Emperor was close to Bouvet, as he was discussing with Bouvet the Yijing in relation to physics and mathematics (Mungello 1989, 311). Their rapport became an advantage for exchange between the East and the West: the patronage from the Kangxi Emperor gave the Figurists reason to showcase their Figurist views and theories to the other side, the Roman Catholic Church. On his return to Paris as a representative of Kangxi, Bouvet presented 300 volumes of Chinese books to Louis XIV, who was also a patron of the Jesuit Figurists’ mission in China. The Figurists’ translations and re-interpretations of the Chinese classics opened a channel for further exchange between the East and the West. The Figurists’ translations and rewritings may seem to be far-fetched in the eyes of modern readers. This paper does not aim to judge whether these Figurists’ translations were right or wrong; instead, this paper focuses on the signature elements of mystical creatures in their manuscript translations and depicts how the Figurists employed the mystical elements to link Chinese mythology with Greco-Roman, Biblical, and Egyptian mythologies, to prove that all pagan religions have the same origin. Their evidence-based scholarship and exhaustive studies of the Chinese classics originally were targeted at building parallels between ancient Chinese legends and the chronicles of the Bible for the purpose of proselytization. Their translations of ancient Chinese mythologies and legends later came into play to broaden the European people’s understanding of Chinese culture, while their translations of biblical

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stories also opened the eyes of the emperor and the Chinese literati to a Chinese packaging of Christian stories. Acknowledgements This paper was supported by 2018–2019 Early Career Scheme Grant: Genealogies of the Dao—the Jesuits’ Dao Journey (Project Number: 24601818), sponsored by RGC, Hong Kong, during the period 1 January 2019 to 30 June 2021 and Direct Grant offered by the Faculty of Arts, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong [grant project code: 4051188], during the period 21 May 2021 to 20 May 2022. I also express my deep appreciation to the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF) for the images in Figs. 1, 2, and 3.

References Primary Sources Bouvet, Joachim. Dayi Yuanyi Neipian 大易原義內篇 (the Inner Chapter of the Original Meaning of the Great Yi). Manuscripts stored in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. Shelf Mark Borg. Cin. 317. No. 9. ———. Mémoires sur le rapport des anciennes croyances des Chinois avec les traditions bibliques et chrétiennes (Memoirs on the relationship of ancient Chinese beliefs with biblical and Christian traditions). Manuscript no. NAL 1173, stored in Bibliothèque nationale de France. ———. Yi Yao 易鑰 (The Yijing as the Keys to Christianity). Manuscripts stored in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. Shelf Mark Borg. Cin. 317. No. 2. ———. Yi Gao 易稿 (The Drafts of Yi). Manuscripts stored in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. Shelf Mark Borg. Cin. 317. No. 7. Foucquet, Jean-François. Hémisphère céleste boréal avec légende en chinois et annotations manuscrites en latin (Northern celestial hemisphere with legend in Chinese and handwritten annotations in Latin). Manuscript stored in Bibliothèque nationale de France. Shelf Mark no. GE C-16348. Kircher, Athanasius. Chinese Illustrata. Amsterdam: apud Jacobum à Meurs, 1667. Prémare, Joseph de. Selecta quaedam vestigia proecipuorum christianae religionis dogmatum ex antiquis sinarum libris eruta. Manuscripts stored in Bibliothèque nationale de France. Shelf Mark Chinois 9248.

Secondary Sources Brockey, Liam Matthew. 2009. Journey to the East: The Jesuit Mission to China, 1579–1724. Boston: Harvard University Press. Collani, Claudia von. 2001. Figurism. In Handbook of Christianity in China: 635–1800, ed. Nicolas Standaert, 668–679. Leiden: Brill. Li, Sher-shiueh 李奭學. 2015. Zhongwai Wenxue Guanxi Lun Gao 中外文學關係論稿 (Preliminary Discussions on the Relationship between Chinese Literature and Foreign Literature). Taipei: Linking Publishing. Mungello, David E. 1989. Curious Land: Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. ———. 2019. The Silencing of Jesuit Figurist Joseph de Prémare in Eighteenth-Century China. Lanham, Boulder, New York, & London: Lexington Books.

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Rouleau, Francis A. 1967. Chinese Rites Controversy. In New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 3, 610– 617. New York: McGraw-Hill. Spence, Jonathan D. 1989. Emperor of China: Self-portrait of K’ang-hsi. New York: Vintage Books. Standaert, Nicolas. 2018. Chinese Voices in the Rites Controversy. In The Rites Controversies in the Early Modern World, ed. Ines G. Županov and Pierre Antoine Fabre, 50–67. The Netherlands: Brill. ———. 2015. Jean-François Foucquet’s Contribution to the Establishment of Chinese Book Collections in European Libraries: Circulation of Chinese Books. Monumenta Serica 63: 361–424. ———. 2016. The Intercultural Weaving of Historical Texts: Chinese and European Stories about Emperor Ku and His Concubines. Leiden: Brill. Stuckrad, Kocku von. 2010. Locations of Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Esoteric Discourse and Western Identities. Leiden & Boston: Brill. Voss, Angela. 2006. Marsilio Ficino. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books. Wei, Ling-chia Sophie. 2018. In the Light and Shadow of the Dao—Two Figurists, Two Intellectual Webs. Journal of Translation Studies, New Series 2 (2): 1–22. ———. 2019. Chinese Theology and Translation: The Christianity of the Jesuit Figurists and their Christianized Yijing. London, UK and New York, USA: Routledge. Wilhelm, Richard. 1977. The I Ching or Book of Changes: The Richard Wilhelm Translation, trans. Cary F. Baynes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Wilson, J. Keith. 1990. Powerful Form and Potent Symbol: The Dragon in Asia. The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 77 (8): 286–324.

Sophie Ling-chia Wei is an Assistant Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She received her PhD from the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania, in 2015. Her research interests include Jesuits’ translation of Chinese classics, Jesuits’ classical and vernacular use of Chinese languages, as well as Protestant missionaries’ translation of Chinese classics. She recently published one book, Chinese Theology and Translation: The Christianity of the Jesuit Figurists and their Christianized Yijing by Routledge in 2019. She also co-edited The Newly Edited Song Long Yuan’s Commentaries on Daodejing (道德經舊 注精編), which was published by Shanghai Joint Publishing in 2020. Her article, “In the Light and Shadow of the Dao – Two Figurists, Two Intellectual Webs” in Journal of Translation Studies was awarded joint runner-up for the Martha Cheung Award for Best English Article in Translation Studies by an Early Career Scholar, from The SISU Baker Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies in March 2020.

Striving for the “Original” Meaning: A Historical Survey of Yijing’s English Translations Weirong Li

Abstract From James Legge’s first attempt to translate the Yijing in the English speaking world in 1854, to the latest translation, The Original Meaning of the Yijing, by Joseph A. Adler in 2019, the process of translating the Yijing into English has been continuing for nearly 170 years, and there are countless translations by numerous translators. Historically, these English translations of the Yijing reveal five trends: first, the translations rely on the authoritative, traditional commentaries on the Yijing; secondly, some translations rely on the personal help and interpretations of Yijing scholars in China; thirdly, some translations depend on recently unearthed documents of the Yijing; fourthly, Yili and Xiangshu are more or less involved in these translations, although the focus of each translation is not always the same; fifthly, most translations strive for the “original” meaning of the Yijing, especially with the unearthed documents of the Yijing since the 1970s. It could be safely concluded that the ultimate goal of the English translators of the Yijing is to provide English readers with the Yijing that is closest to the original/authentic meaning so that people in the West can truly understand the essence of Chinese philosophy represented by the Yijing. Keywords The Yijing · The history of English translations · Striving for the original · Chinese philosophy Zhou 周 usually has two meanings. It refers to the Zhou dynasty on the one hand. On the other, it relates to the sentence in the Ta zhuan 大传 (the Great Treatise), 知周乎万物, 道济乎天下, 故不过, meaning “embrace”, “immerse”, and “universal(ly)”. James Legge’s translation is “His knowledge embraces all things, and his course is (intended to be) helpful to all under the sky; and hence he falls into no error.” (See Legge, James trans. The Yi King [The Texts of Confucianism from Sacred Books of China, vol. 16, Part II]. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1892: 354) Richard Wilhelm’s translation is “His wisdom embraces all things, and his tao brings order into the whole world; therefore he does not err” (See Richard Wilhelm, trans. I Ching or Book of Changes. Rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes. Penguin Books. 1989: 295) Edward L. Shaughnessy’s translation is “Knowing universally among the ten-thousand beings, the Way is equal with all under heaven; therefore, it does not go too far.” (See Shaughnessy, Edward L. I Ching: The Classic of Changes. New York: Ballantine Books. 1996: 191). 1

W. Li (B) Yuelu Academy, Hunan University, Changsha, China e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Qi and S. Tobias (eds.), Encountering China’s Past, New Frontiers in Translation Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0648-0_10

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1 Introduction The Yijing 易经 (or Yi King, I Ching, Book of Changes, Classic of Changes, Law of Changes, Law of Mutations, etc.) is an ancient Chinese text with two main sections. The older section is usually named the Zhouyi 周易1 (The Yi of the Zhou [State/Dynasty]), which includes 64 hexagrams. Each hexagram has three parts. The first one is guahua 卦画, the image of each hexagram, which is represented by 8 trigrams with 6 divided (—) and undivided (—) lines, the former signifies yin and the latter yang. The second one is guaci 卦辞, the hexagram statements, i.e., the interpretations of each hexagram. The third one is yaoci 爻辞, the line statements, each of which provides omens or prognoses and recommendations for action, especially further or future action. Therefore, the Zhouyi is usually treated as a book of divination/oracle. Traditionally, the guahua is attributed to Fu Xi 伏羲, a legendary emperor in ancient China; and the hexagram and line statements are attributed to 周文王 King Wen of Zhou State, who founded the Zhou dynasty. The latter section, usually called Yi zhuan 易传 (Commentaries on the Zhouyi), is traditionally attributed to 孔子 Kongzi (Confucius). The Yi zhuan consists of ten parts, Tuan zhuan 彖传 (Commentaries on the Hexagram Statements) I and II, Daxiang zhuan 大象传 (Commentaries on the Images of the Hexagrams), Xiaoxiang zhuan 小象传 (Commentaries on the Images of Hexagram Lines), Xici zhuan 系辞传 (Great Commentaries/Treatises on the Appended Phrases) I and II, Wenyan zhuan 文言传 (Commentaries on the Words of the Zhouyi), Shuogua zhuan 说卦传 (Remarks on Trigrams), Xugua zhuan 序卦传 (Remarks on the Sequence of Hexagrams), and Zagua zhuan 杂卦传 (Remarks on the Miscellany of Hexagrams) (Hon 2004: 3). Because it contains ten parts, it is also called Ten Wings 十翼. The Yi zhuan mainly intends to give philosophical explanations and interpretations to the phenomena in the Zhouyi. The Yijing, therefore, is regarded as a book of wisdom. The Yijing is one of the most important books in China. Together with the Book of Poetry, Book of Documents, Book of Rites, Annals of the Spring and Autumn Periods, and Book of Music, they are regarded as the Six Confucian Classics, with the Yijing ranking as the first. As the “first of the Chinese Six Confucian Classics,” the Yijing has been the most frequently translated and discussed of Chinese classics in the Western world. The first mention of it can be traced back to the Jesuit missionaries. Lin Jinshui 林金水 (1946–) proposed that Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) may have been the first person who had access to and read the Yijing in the West (Lin 1988: 367). Ricci’s student Nicolas Trigault (1577–1628) was the first person who introduced and partially translated the Yijing into Latin in Pentabiblion Sinense, which, however, was unfortunately lost (Collani 2007: 233). In 1642, the title of the book 易经 (Yijing) was translated as Yekim in Portuguese (Semedo 1642: 75). Martino Martini (1614–1661) also introduced the Yijing to the West and translated the terms, such as Yeking, Yn, Yang, principia, signa quatuor, and octo formas, etc., as well as the diagrams of 64 hexagrams although without their names (Martini 1659: 14–18), 27 years earlier than Confucius Sinarum Philosophus in 1687 (Intorcetta et al 1687: xliv). Gabriel de

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Magalhães (1610–1677) also introduced the books such as V kim (Five Classics), Ye kim (Yijing, aka, Classic of Changes), and the name Cùm fú cius (or Cum fu cius, aka, Confucius) in 1668 (Magalhães 1688: 110–121). David R. Knechtges (1942–) maintained that Claude de Visdelou (1656–1737) was the first person who translated the Yijing into a European language, even though he only translated Hexagram 15, and that one of Visdelou’s contributions was the creation of “trigramme” and “hexagramme” to designate the three-lined and six-lined gua 卦 of the Yijing (Knechtges 2004: 126). The first complete translation of the Yijing into a European language was finished by Jean-Baptiste Régis (1664–1738) in 1736 (Régis 1834: xi), but it was not published until 1834–39. Régis translated the Yijing based on two forerunners, Joseph de Mailla (1669–1748) and Pierre-Vincent de Tartre (1669–1724) (Régis 1834: xv). The first complete English translation of the Yijing was done by Rev. Canon Thomas McClatchie (1813–1885) in 1876, but it did not prevail. Paul-Louis-Felix Philastre (1837–1902) published his translation of the Yijing in French in 1885 and 1893, together with the commentaries of Cheng Yi 程颐 (1033–1107) and Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200). Charles-Joseph de Harlez (1832–1899) published the complete translation of the Yijing in French in 1889 from Manchu, which was translated from French into English by Jean-Pierre Val d’Eremo in 1896 (Knechtges and Chang 2014: 1894). Apart from the translations of the Yijing, Joachim Bouvet’s (1656–1730) Figurist interpretation of the Yijing (Mungello 1985: 17–19) and Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz’ (1646–1716) binary system, which was noticeably inspired by the Yijing (Ryan 1996: 59–90), helped increase the influence of the Yijing in the West. The aforementioned translations and studies of the Yijing in Latin, French, German, and other languages have surely played their part in of the dissemination of the Yijing into the Western world. These translators evidently knew that the Yijing was a classic with a very important role in ancient China. They were the pioneers in introducing Chinese philosophical books to the West which gained much attention among later missionaries and scholars. However, the most important role has been played by the English translations of the Yijing since McClatchie’s first complete translation in 1876, partly because of the global prominence of English as a lingua franca. This chapter intends to give a historical overview of the Yijing’s English translations through five perspectives.

2 The Yijing Traditional Commentaries: Hidden Clues in Understanding and Translating the Yijing McClatchie’s complete translation of the Yijing, including both the text and its appendixes, was published in 1876, and Terrien de Lacouperie’s (1844–1894) partial translation of the Yijing came out in 1892. Lacouperie called the Yijing the oldest one of the Chinese books and a mysterious classic (Lacouperie 1882: 784).

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In 1882, James Legge (1815–1897) published his complete translation of the Yijing, which turned out to be an epic work. Even though it came out later than McClatchie’s translation, it usurped the former work and became the first dominant translation in the history of the English translations. It was the most influential and read translation of the Yijing before Cary F. Baynes (1883–1977) rendered Richard Wilhelm’s (1873–1930) German translation of the Yijing into English in 1950. It is worth noticing that James Legge translated the Yijing early in 1854, but because he thought that he “knew very little about the scope and method of the book,” he laid it aside and hoped that one day he should get hold of “a clue that would guide him to a knowledge of the mysterious classic.” It was not until 1874 when he began to feel that he had obtained such a clue. Unfortunately, in 1870 his original translation was soaked in the Red Sea, so he had to start over (Legge 1892: xiii). He agreed with the Imperial edition of 1715, i.e., Balanced Annotations of the Zhouyi, that the Zhouyi text should be complete in itself, keeping the text and its appendixes separate (Legge 1892: xiii–xiv). Both the Imperial editions of Daily Lectures on the Yijing in 1682 and Balanced Annotations of the Zhouyi were the two main editions which Legge frequently referred to in his translation: I have not had the help of able native scholars, which save time and was otherwise valuable when I was working in the East on other classics. The want of this, however, has been more than compensated in some respects by my copy of the “Daily Lectures on the Yi.” (Legge 1892: xx) I am under great obligations … also to the Zhou Yi Zhe Zhong, the great imperial edition of the present dynasty, first published in 1715. I have generally spoken of its authors as the Kang-xi editors. Their numerous discussions of the meaning, and ingenious decisions, go far to raise the interpretation of the Yi to a science. (Legge 1892: xxi)

From the two quotations above, we can clearly see how important a part these two books, the Imperial editions of Daily Lectures on the Yijing and Balanced Annotations of the Zhouyi, played in his translation. In 1950, Legge’s translation was challenged by the Wilhelm/Baynes translation of the Yijing. The latter was originally translated from Chinese to German by Richard Wilhelm (1873–1930) in 1924, and later was rendered from German to English by Cary F. Baynes in 1950. Like Legge, Richard Wilhelm also based his translation primarily on the Imperial edition of Balanced Annotations of the Zhouyi in 1715 (Wilhelm 1975: 257 n. 2). Minford also contends that the 1715 Imperial Compendium became the “standard” edition of the Yijing for over two centuries and that it was the one used by Régis, Legge, Philastre, and Wilhelm. He says that he also refers to it when he translates (Minford 2014: 783). Since the 1990s, the translation of the Yijing has come to prominence again, and this is demonstrated by two facts: one is that more and more translations of the Yijing by Yijing scholars in the English world have been published, and the other is that these translators have been assisted by research conducted by Yijing scholars such as Wang Bi, Zhu Xi, and Cheng yi. Richard J. Lynn (1940–) based his translation on Wang Bi’s Annotations of the Zhouyi (Zhouyi zhu 周易注) (1994), Thomas Cleary (1949–) on Cheng Yi’s Commentaries on the Yijing (Chengshi yizhuan 程氏易传) (1995),

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Joseph A. Adler on Zhu Xi’s Introduction to the Study of the Classic of Change (I-hsüeh ch’i-meng) (Yixue qimeng 易学启蒙) (2002) and The Original Meaning of the Zhouyi (Zhouyi benyi 周易本义) (2020), and L. Michael Harrington on Cheng Yi’s The Yi River Commentary on the Book of Changes (Yichuan yizhuan 伊川易传) (2019). Edward L. Shaughnessy’s (1952–) translation (1996) was markedly different from other translations because it was based on the Mawangdui Silk Manuscript of the Yijing, together with the received texts of the Yijing interpreted by Li Jingchi 李镜池 (1902–1975) (Li 2020: 93). In any case, all the translations mentioned above were based on authoritative commentaries and annotations which demonstrate the evolution of Yijing scholarship in China. In the beginning stage, the translators, such as James Legge and Richard Wilhelm mainly relied on the anthologies of the Yijing, but later on, the translators sought to base their translations on the work of individual researchers of the Yijing, such as Wang Bi, Zhu Xi, and Cheng Yi, etc., as they had good knowledge of the hermeneutic history of the Yijing in China since the 1990s. Interestingly, though there are many English translations of the Yijing, they are not of equal importance in how the Yijing is understood in the Anglophone sphere. Some are more influential than others, partly because the translator has consulted more authoritative anthologies and partly because they have benefited heavily from personal help from Yijing scholars and interpretations in China which will be discussed in Sect. 3.

3 Chinese Yijing Scholars’ Help and Interpretation: Main Factors in Promoting Yijing’s Translations Many learned scholars of the Yijing in China provided significant assistance in the translations of the Yijing. Wang Tao王韬 (1828–1897) contributed a great deal to James Legge’s translation of the Chinese Classics, especially the Yijing. Legge also mentioned an anonymous scholar whose notes in the book, which Legge bought with the help of a friend in Canton, helped him a lot with his translation of the Chinese classics. “It was possible, from his punctuation, interlineations, and many marginal notes, to follow the exercises of his mind, patiently pursuing his search for the meaning of the most difficult passages. I am under great obligations to him” (Legge 1892: xx–xxi). Lee notes that Legge translated the Confucian Analects, Great Learning, Doctrine of the Mean, and the works of Mencius with the assistance of Huang Sheng 黄胜 and Lo Hsiang 罗祥, and the other translations of Chinese Classics, including the Yijing, were completed with Wang Tao’s assistance (Lee 1973: 223); Wang wrote ten books in the field of Confucian Classics, including one on the Yijing (Lee 1973: 224), i.e., Collected Commentaries on the Yijing (Zhouyi jishi 周易集释) (Lee 1973: 122, 240). Likewise, Richard Wilhelm received much help from the Chinese scholars, especially Xing Kechang 邢克昌 and Lao Naixuan 劳乃宣 (1843–1921). The former

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helped him understand and translate the Confucian classics such as the Analects and Book of Poetry (Jiang 2004: 99), and the latter mainly helped him understand and translate the Yijing (Smith 2012: 31). From the translation process described in his biography, we could see how significant a role Lao Naixuan played in Wilhelm’s translation of the Yijing: Master Lao suggested that I should translate The Book of Changes. … Accordingly we proceeded to work upon the book. We worked accurately. He explained the text in Chinese and I made my notes. I then translated the text for myself into German. I thereupon translated my German text without the original into Chinese, and he compared it to see if my translation was correct in all particulars. The German text was then gone over to improve the style, and it was discussed in detail. I then wrote three to four other versions and added the most important commentaries. (Wilhelm 1928: 180–181)

Wilhelm said that they translated accurately because Lao steered him in the right direction, and there was harmonious collaboration between them. This is an ideal scenario in translation in that Lao was a master of the Yijing and Wilhelm was an expert in the German language and culture. Wilhelm and Lao’s translation process could be clearly observed, which was not the case for Legge and Wang because Legge did not describe how he translated the Yijing with the help of Wang Tao. Although Legge and Wilhelm have made significant contributions in bringing the Yijing to audiences worldwide, Kunst criticizes them for relying too heavily on Wang Tao and Lao Naixuan so that their translations are extremely rich in metaphorical understanding but do not properly reflect the original meaning of the text (Kunst 1985: vi). He also notices and criticizes that Legge depends heavily on Zhu Xi, Cheng Yi, and other Song scholars when he translates, without referring to the original text at all. (Kunst 1985: vi). When Shaughnessy translated the Mawangdui Silk Manuscript of the Yijing, he also had much assistance from excellent scholars in contemporary China such as Qiu Xigui 裘锡圭 (1935–), Chen Guying 陈鼓应 (1935–) (Shaughnessy 1996: x), AisinGioro Yuyun 爱新觉罗毓鋆 (1906–2011), Zhang Zhenglang 张政烺 (1912–2005), and Li Xueqin 李学勤 (1933–2019), etc. (Li 2020: 91). Richard A. Kunst gained much help from Li Jingchi, Gao Heng 高亨 (1900–1986), Wang Li 王力 (1900–1986), and Lou Yulie 楼宇烈 (1934–), etc. (Kunst 1985: xiii). John Minford (1946–) also mentioned that his translation and interpretation of the Yijing benefited enormously from three commentators in particular. The first is Liu Yiming 刘一明 (1734–1821), “who brought to his reading of the I Ching insights from his lived experience as a Master in the Dragon Gate School of Complete Reality [Quanzhen] Taoism” (Minford 2014: 5). The second is Chen Guying 陈鼓应, a contemporary Taiwanese philosopher and Daoist scholar, whose commentary helped Minford with his translation of the Yijing into English. The third commentator is Mun Kin Chok (Cantonese pronunciation of Min Jianshu 闵建蜀, 1935–), Professor Emeritus of Marketing at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Minford 2014: 6– 7). Meanwhile, other Chinese scholars’ research on the Yijing such as Gao Heng, Li Jingchi, and Wen Yiduo 闻一多 (1899–1946) helped him a great deal with his translation (Minford 2014: 502).

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It is difficult to clearly identify how the commentaries of all these Yijing scholars helped Minford with his translation because he has not written about his translation methods or whose commentaries were particularly helpful. But, he provided their commentaries after the translation, in the same way as the ancient commentators dealt with the Yijing in their commentaries, for example, Yang line in Yang place. An Advance will plunge one recklessly into Danger, writes Legge. Withdraw, return, wait for a better time, and one will be received with Joy. Do away with the Human Heart-and-Mind, writes Magister Liu. Hold fast to the Heart-and-Mind of the Tao. The Leader, writes Professor Mun, should return to a more secure place. He should preserve his Strength for the future. (Minford 2014: 316)

After translating the line statements of the third line of Hexagram # 39 Jian 蹇 (Adversity), Minford gives his commentaries above. Liu Yiming applies the Yijing in self-cultivation, so he gives first priority to the Heart-and-Mind. Mun Kin Chok applies classic Chinese philosophy, especially the Yijing, in modern management studies, so he always takes the Leader into consideration. In translating Cheng Yi’s 程颐 The Yi River Commentary on the Book of Changes, L. Michael Harrington collaborated on the introduction with Robin B. Wang 王蓉蓉, a professor of philosophy at Loyola Marymount University. Wang received her education in philosophy (both BA and MA) at Peking University over 7 years, and she authored the monograph entitled Yinyang: The Way of Heaven and Earth in Chinese Thought and Culture (2012) published by Cambridge University Press, so she is an expert on the Yijing. It would be safe to suggest that Harrington got some help from her since they co-authored the introduction of this translation. To sum up, in the early stage, the translators relied mostly on the Chinese Yijing scholars’ interpretations, as was the case with Legge and Wilhelm; later translators could consult Chinese Yijing scholars when necessary in order to broaden their knowledge and understanding of the Yijing, as was the case with Shaughnessy, Kunst, and Harrington, etc.

4 Mutual Corroboration of the “Received Texts” of the Yijing and the Unearthed Documents: An Important Perspective Following the 1973 excavation of the Han tombs in Mawangdui, Hunan Province, the Silk Manuscript of the Yijing attracted much attention from Yijing scholars both in China and abroad, so much so that for two decades in the 1980s and 1990s, there was much public enthusiasm or “Yijing fever” (Yijing re 易经热), in China. Richard J. Smith points out that new and creative Yijing scholarship, fueled in part by dramatic archaeological discoveries on the Mainland, generated intense scholarly controversies throughout the country (Smith 2008: 5). Smith continues to point out that growing numbers of contemporary scholars, Chinese and Westerners alike, have come to think that the Yijing deserves a more prominent place in world literature, not

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simply as a cultural curiosity but as a significant work in its own right, one that can help us understand what the category “world literature” itself might mean (Smith 2008: 5). What we knew and thought about the Yijing would be challenged after the archaeological discoveries were made since the 1970s because chronological and spatial boundaries have been redrawn, attributes of authorship and editorship have been questioned or debunked, and traditional intellectual lineages have been deconstructed and usually radically reconstructed (Smith 2008: 7–8). Bent Nielsen points out that in China, the discovery of the oracle bones in the 1900s led to a new approach to the classics in general and the Yijing in particular. The new approach—often referred to as context criticism or contextual studies—in turn, meant a shift from relying on Han commentators to interpretations based on knowledge of grammar, syntax, and vocabulary obtained from studies of the oraclebone and bronze inscriptions (Nielsen 2003: xvi). Academically, it is a paradigmatic shift that has dramatically changed the focus of the Yijing study. Further, this approach is more objective because it relies on knowledge of grammar, syntax, and vocabulary, and it is possible for the researchers to be freed from the heavy commentaries of the Yijing, which were made by individual Yijing scholars and would inevitably be subjective. Li Xueqin, a leading contemporary authority on all aspects of the cultural history of early China, (Shaughnessy 2014: 281) observes that The Mawangdui Silk Manuscript of the Yijing has both the Zhouyi and its Appendixes. Upon careful reading, the text of the Zhouyi has been rearranged into the hexagram sequence according to the theory of yin and yang, starting from Hexagram Qian 乾卦 and ending in Hexagram Yi 益卦, based on the received text which starts from Hexagram Qian 乾卦 and ending in Hexagram Weiji 未济卦; the text of the Appendixes was not created by a specific person at a specific time with many places disordered and fractured. It is not difficult to imagine that the original copy, which was scribed in the early years of Emperor Hanwen 汉文帝, originated from a school of Yijing scholars in the State of Chu. After the Qin fire, the scholars of this school spared no effort to collect the remnants and assemble them into a book. However, the remnant copies obtained were disordered and it was not easy to recover. A considerable part of the Commentary on the Appended Statements (Xici 系辞) was separated and included in other texts of the Appendixes. How to split, how to leak, can now be seen very clearly. From the classics of the Bamboo Slips and Silk Manuscripts, we have come to realize that the system of the studies on the classics in the Western Han Dynasty is much more complicated than what has been known in the records by the scholars in the Han Dynasty. For example, the Silk Manuscript Zhou Yi mentioned above is obviously outside of Tian He’s 田何2 school of the Yijing3 (Li 2000: 4) According to Biographies of Confucian Scholars (Ruilin liezuhan 儒林列传) in Sima Qian’s 司马迁 Grand Scribe’s Records (Shiji 史记), Shang Qu 商瞿 from the State of Lu learned the Yijing from Confucius; after the death of Confucius, Shang Qu taught the Yijing thereafter and this tradition of interpreting the Yijing passed on six generations to Tian He 田何, and then Tian He passed on this tradition to Wang Tong 王同, and then from Wang Tong to Yang He 杨何. (See Sima, Qian. Biographies of Confucian Scholars from Grand Scribe’s Records. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. 2010: 7172). 3 Some Yijing scholars disagree with Li Xueqin’s observation, i.e., Liu Dajun thinks that the most important and valuable aspect is that the excavated Silk Manuscript of the Zhouyi, including the 2

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It is possible to draw at least three conclusions: that the hexagram sequence of the Mawangdui Silk Manuscript of the Yijing is different from that of the received text, that the Xici of the Mawangdui Silk Manuscript of the Yijing is different from that of the received text, and that it doesn’t belong to Tian He’s school of the Yijing. Kunst regards the Mawangdui manuscript of the Yijing unearthed in 1973 as one of the dazzling archaeological discoveries (Kunst 1985: iv), and he believes that a photographic reproduction of the transcription of the Mawangdui manuscript of the Yijing discovered in 1973 was used to reconstruct the original text and its meaning (Kunst 1985: 604–611). Shaughnessy thinks that the archaeologist excavating Han tomb #3 at Mawangdui made probably the greatest discovery of early Chinese manuscripts since the opening of cave #17 at Dunhuang 敦煌 in 1900. Importantly, by far the earliest manuscript copy of the Yijing was excavated at Han tomb #3 (Shaughnessy 1996: 14). Therefore, Shaughnessy produced the first translation of the Mawangdui Silk Manuscript of the Yijing in the world. Furthermore, Shaughnessy also translated the Shanghai Museum Manuscript of the Zhou Yi (Shaughnessy 2014: 67–139), the Wangjiatai BambooStrip Manuscripts of the Gui cang Fragments (Shaughnessy 2014: 171–187), and the Fuyang Zhou Yi Manuscript (Shaughnessy 2014: 213–279), each of which has something different to teach us about the development of the Yijing and its traditions: The Shanghai Museum Zhou Yi reveals that the text of the Changes had achieved virtually its definitive shape by no later than 300 BC. Whether the Shanghai Museum manuscript suggests that the Changes was in relatively widespread circulation by 300 BC or not, the Wangjiatai Gui cang manuscripts do show conclusively that the Changes was by no means the only divination text in existence at the time; and the Fuyang manuscript confirms the traditional view that the Changes originated and developed in the context of divination (Shaughnessy 2014: 281–283). Richard Rutt contends that “the Mawangdui manuscript encourages us to read the received text of Zhouyi with an eye to the use of loan characters and phonetic variants; but its greatest interest lies in the light it seems likely to throw on the history of the Ten Wings.” (Rutt 2002: 37) and that it also improved “our knowledge of Old Chinese” (Rutt 2002: 43). Minford states that “over the past decades, the unearthing of an increasing number of early versions of the I Ching and associated texts, written on bamboo strips and on silk, has opened the door to ever more radical rereadings of the Oracle and of text of the sixty-four hexagrams and the texts of the Appendixes such as A Couple of Disciples (Er san zi 二三子), Commentary on the Appended Statements (Xici 系辞), and The Essentials (Yao 要), etc., retained completely the original text of the Zhouyi in the New Text scholarship in the early Han Dynasty in the clerical script, which has been dust-laden for more than 2,000 years. After careful investigation, we firmly believe that the Mawangdui Silk Manuscript of the Yijing is exactly the Yijing in the New Text scholarship which was passed on from Tian He 田何 in the early Han Dynasty. (See Liu, Dajun. The Mawangdui Silk Manuscript of the Yijing and the Yijing in the New Text Scholarship in Han Dynasty. Study on Confucian Classics and Thoughts. 2009: 1). Shaughnessy also holds that Commentary on the Appended Statements is the only one of the manuscript commentary texts that is also found in the received text of the Yijing. (See Shaughnessy, Edward L. I Ching: The Classic of Changes. New York: Ballantine Books. 1996: 20).

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the society in which it evolved.” Among them, “the most famous one was the silk manuscript copy unearthed in 1973 at Mawangdui, Changsha” (Minford 2014: 502). Paul G. Fendos, Jr. also believes that recent archaeological discoveries do offer at least some evidence of the origins of the Book of Changes, allowing for the formulation of a speculative chronology of its development (Fendos 2018: 6). The unearthed texts of the Yijing are quite important for modern Yijing scholars both in China and elsewhere, partly due to the May Fourth spirit of skepticism in contemporary China which was pioneered by Gu Jiegang 顾颉刚 (1893–1980), inspired considerably by a Qing scholar Cui Shu 崔述 (1740–1816) who held skeptical opinions on the authenticity of ancient Chinese classics, and partly because the unearthed texts could evidently provide some new insights in understanding the Yijing and other ancient classics. Influenced and inspired by this spirit of skepticism, non-Chinese Yijing scholars such as Shaughnessy, Kunst, and Rutt, etc., interpret the Yijing with reference to the unearthed texts of the Yijing.

5 Yili and Xiangshu: Two Intermingled Approaches According to the Annotated Catalog of Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries (Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao《四库全书总目提要》), the study of the Yijing falls into two schools: one is the School of Meanings and Principles (yili xuepai 义理学派), and the other the School of Images and Numbers (xiangshu xuepai 象数学派). The School of Meanings and Principles mainly regards the Yijing as a source of Daoist philosophical issues (or Huang-Lao Daoist issues), the Confucian philosophical issues, and historical issues, while the School of Images and Numbers regards the Yijing as a source of divination (zhanbu 占卜), prognostication (jixiang 禨祥), and diagram (yitu 易图). The former approach mainly deals with scholarly issues, while the latter approach mainly deals with divinatory issues (Smith 2013: 156–157). Throughout most of the Zhou period, the Yijing was only used for divination, and only since the late Zhou period, especially when it became one of the “Confucian” classics in the second century BCE, did the Yijing obtain the reputation of being a book of wisdom, i.e., repository of profound moral and metaphysical truths (Smith 2008: 7). Therefore, the translators would naturally think the Yijing is either a book of divination or a book of wisdom, or both. Wilhelm maintains that the Yijing is unquestionably one of the most important books in the world’s literature: on the one hand, at the outset, it was a collection of linear signs to be used as oracles, and on the other, of far greater significance than the use of the Yijing as an oracle is its use as a book of wisdom (Wilhelm 1975: xlvii–liv). John Blofeld aims to “produce a version in the simplest language containing clear instructions for its use in divination, so that any English-speaking person who approaches it sincerely and intelligently can use it as an infallible means of choosing

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good and avoiding evil.” But he does not think it was “one of those ordinary fortunetelling books which forecast future events and leave us to sit back passively awaiting them”; rather “it makes suggestions, based on an analysis of the interplay of universal forces, not about what WILL happen but what SHOULD be done to accord with or to avoid a given happening.” Thus, “it makes us the architects of our own future, while helping us to avoid or minimize disasters and to derive some benefit from every possible situation.” Therefore, “it is a book for those who prize virtue and harmony above benefit.” Blofeld says that he doesn’t intend to compete with or duplicate Wilhelm’s translation, but his version mainly differs from Wilhelm’s in this way: his version is almost wholly concentrated on the aspect of divination, whereas Wilhelm’s version is to some extent a textbook suggesting how the words of the text are derived from the symbolic diagrams to which they refer (Blofeld, 1968: 15–16). Even though Kunst focuses his study on the linguistic aspects in the Yijing, he “tried as much as possible to determine from both internal and external evidence the meaning that each word had in the Early Old Chinese language (EOC) in which the Yijing diviner and his client conduct their oracular consultation, …” (Kunst: viii). Shaughnessy agrees that the Yijing was first used as a diviner’s prompt book, and Confucius was not content to use the book just for divination, but rather saw in it a more general philosophical significance and that these are both important aspects of the Yijing tradition (Shaughnessy 1996: 2). Further, Shaughnessy holds that the turtle-shell divination accounted for two of the types of divination: an omen-verse (zhou 繇), which resulted in the creation of the line statements, and an advisory interpretation (Shaughnessy 1996: 7–13). John Minford maintains that “the roots of the Chinese classic the I Ching, or the Book of Changes, lie in ancient practices of Divination” (Minford 2014: ix). Later on, “a growing apparatus of quasi-philosophical commentaries was nonetheless already growing up around the untext of the Oracle.” Therefore, “it continued to occupy this central spiritual space, as Book of Wisdom and Power, for over two thousand years” (Minford 2014: xiii). To Minford, the Yijing has evolved from divination to oracle, and then from oracle to a book of wisdom (Minford 2014: ix–xviii). Basically, the book of oracle refers to the Zhouyi 周易 (Legge refers to it as the Text) and the book of wisdom refers to the Ten Wings 十翼 (Legge refers to it as the Appendixes). When translating the Yijing, Minford takes these two aspects into consideration. Minford’s translation of the Yijing has two versions, with Version 1 standing for the book of wisdom, and Version 2 the book of oracle. Version 2 is extremely simple, only conveying the original meaning of the line statements, but English Version 1 is quite different. First of all, in Version 1 the interpretation of the line statements is different from Version 2, “An Advance meets with Adversity, Si eat, Erit periculum. Hold back, Return.” is more concrete than “Stumbling there, Ambling gently back.” Version 1 also includes the Remarks on the Image because it extends to interpret the line statements. Meanwhile, Version 1 translates “九三” into “Yang in Third Place,” while Version 2 translates it into “Nine in the Third Place.” The former is more meaningful and illuminating than the latter because Yin and Yang have been the two fundamental and interconnected binary polarities, or planes, of Chinese thought even since late Zhou times, and they do not feature in the core text of the Oracle,

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but are basic to any understanding of the Yijing as a book of wisdom, and feature prominently in the Great Treatise and all subsequent commentaries (Minford 2014: 614). In the most recent translation of Zhu Xi’s The Original Meaning of the Yijing: Commentary on the Scripture of Change (Zhouyi benyi 周易本义), Joseph A. Adler agrees with Zhu Xi that “the Yi was originally created for divination” (Adler 2019: 11), and he also maintains that “it is difficult to overstate the historical significance of the Yijing in Chinese thought and religion. It was venerated and used in Confucianism, Daoism, popular religion, and even Buddhism” (Adler 2019: 21). Therefore, Adler thinks that the Yijing is unique in becoming a “book of wisdom” and a manual of divination (Adler 2019: 2).

6 Striving for the “original” Meaning of the Yijing: The Ultimate Aim of Translating the Yijing into English Most translators try their best to strive for the “original” meaning of the Yijing, even though they don’t include the word “original” in the title of their translations or publicly discussed it in their translation paratexts. Kunst claims that he “submitted this study to the readers as a kit of tools for the future analysis of the original Yijing” (Kunst: viii). Shaughnessy translated the Mawangdui Silk Manuscript of the Yijing with the help of the received text so that he could try his best to strive for the “original” meaning of the Yijing. In order to illustrate how he deals with it, we will look at Hexagram #60 Jian 渐卦 as an example. From Table 2, we can see clearly that Shaughnessy makes good use of the received text of the Yijing. Wherever the Mawangdui Silk Manuscript of the Yijing is missing, replaced with the graphic 口, he would refer to the received text and try to make the translation reasonable, logical, and readable. He would replace the missing parts with the received text, but he would put the translation into brackets, indicating that something is missing in the Mawangdui Silk Manuscript of the Yijing. On the other, Shaughnessy translates the text as it is written (Shaughnessy 1996: 320), which is one of his principles of translation, because he thinks that a translator would surely not do justice to the text and the possibility of phonetic loans does not give the translator license to change the text as well (Shaughnessy 1996: 30). There are many problems when interpreting the Mawangdui Silk Manuscript of the Yijing. The most important problem is to see whether the excavated text and the received one are the same or different. The difference deserves more attention. In Table 1, we could see in the received text, the goose advances to a riverbank (gan 干), to a boulder (pan 磐), to high land (lu 陆), to trees (mu 木), to a ridge (ling 陵), and then to high land (lu 陆) again in turn (Kunst 1985: 344–345), while in the Mawangdui Silk Manuscript of the Yijing, the goose advances to the depths (yuan 渊), to the slope (ban 坂), to the land (lu 陆), to the tree (mu 木), to the mound (ling 陵), and then

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Table 1 Line Statements of Third Line of Hexagram #39 Jian 蹇 Chinese

English version 1

English version 2

九三, 蹇往来反

Yang in Third Place An Advance Meets with Adversity, Si eat, Erit periculum Hold back, Return. (Minford 2014: 315–316)

Nine in the Third Place Stumbling there, Ambling gently back. (Minford 2014: 669)

《象》曰

On the Image

往蹇来反, 内喜之也。 There is Joy Within the Lower Trigram, Intus gaudet. (Minford 2014: 316)

to the land (lu 陆) again (Shaughnessy 1996: 157). Apparently, it is more logical for people to see the goose from the depths to the slope, to the land, to the tree, and to the mound. The places from the lowest to the highest illustrate the process of the goose’s movement in a reasonable way. In this way, we can see that the copyist of the Mawangdui Silk Manuscript of the Yijing arranged the text more logically, compared to the random way the goose’s movement was given in the received text. Though the goose finally advances to the land again in both texts, which would confuse the readers, the translator and interpreter, Shaughnessy doesn’t change it because of the aforementioned principle of translation that he adheres to: translating a manuscript “just as it is written” (Shaughnessy 1996: 30). From the way in which the goose advances, the last place it advances should be higher than the ridge, rather than the land. Therefore, Li Jingchi thinks the last place Lu 陆 is a mistake; it should be E 阿, which means mountain (Li 1981: 105). Rudolf Ritsema (1918–2006), director of the Eranos Foundation for more than thirty years, translated the Yijing in the early 1990s, partly on his own, and partly in collaboration with others. Finally, he translated The Original I Ching Oracle; or, the Book of Changes with Shantena A. Sabbadini in 2007, which was revised and published in 2018. Adler is a prolific scholar whose academic interests focus on the Yijing and Chinese philosophy, especially on Zhu Xi’s interpretation of the Yijing. He translated two main books of Zhu Xi’s studies on the Yijing: Introduction to the Studies of the Classic of Changes (I-Hsüeh ch’i-meng) (Yixue qimeng 易学启蒙) in 2002 and The Original Meaning of the Yijing: Commentary on the Scripture of Change in 2019, respectively. The former deals with the diagrams in the Yijing, and the latter translates the interpretation Zhu Xi made of the Yijing. Margaret J. Pearson claims that her translation is both original and authentic because it is “faithful to the oldest layer of the text” (Pearson 2011: 15). She thinks that the Yijing could be feminist because she noticeably follows Wang Bi’s assumption that “the paired concepts of yin and yang were gendered” (Pearson 2011: 19).

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Table 2 Hexagram Jian 漸 and its Translation (Shaughnessy 1996: 156–157) Chinese

English translation

漸 60 漸女歸吉利貞 初六 漸于淵小子厲有言无咎 六二 漸于坂酒食衍衍吉 九三 漸于陸口口口復婦繩不口凶利所寇 六四 漸于木或直其寇 无咎 九五 漸于陵婦三歲不繩終莫之勝吉 尚九 漸于陸其羽可用為宜吉

60. Jian, “Advancing” Advancing: For the maiden to return is auspicious; beneficial to determine Initial Six: The wild goose advances to the depth: for the little son dangerous; there are words; there is no trouble Six in the Second: The wild goose advances to the slope: wine and food so overflowing; auspicious

漸 53 漸女歸吉利貞 初六鴻漸于干小子厲有言無咎 六二鴻漸于磐飲食衎衎吉 九三鴻漸于陸夫徵不復婦孕不育兇利禦寇 六四鴻漸於木或得其桷無咎 九五鴻漸于陵婦三歲不孕終莫之勝吉 上九鴻漸於陸其羽可用為儀吉

Nine in the Third: The wild goose advances to the land: [The husband campaigns but does not] return, the wife is pregnant but does not [give birth]; inauspicious; beneficial to have that which robs Six in the Fourth: The wild goose advances to the tree: perhaps getting what the robbers rejected; there is no trouble Nine in the Fifth: The wild goose advances to the mound: The wife for three years does not get pregnant; in the end nothing overcomes it; auspicious Elevated Nine: The wild goose advances to the land: its feathers can be used to be emblems; auspicious

In conclusion, the translators of the Yijing, no matter where they come from and what language they use, try to strive for the “original” meaning of the Yijing. Some scholars have used “original” in the titles of their translations, but in any case it is evident that they are trying to get closer and closer to the “authentic” meaning of the Yijing. because the “authentic” Yijing is the base for everything: for research and translation. In the very beginning, back in the sixteenth century, the Jesuit translators mainly learned from the Chinese scholars together with books of the Yijing; later on, the missionary translators such as James Legge and Richard Wilhelm received much help from the Chinese Confucian scholars when they translated. Wang Tao helped James Legge with translating the Yijing into English, and Lao Naixuan helped Richard Wilhelm with translating the Yijing into German. With the Mawangdui Silk Manuscript of the Yijing excavated in 1973 and with its publication in the archaeologist journal Cultural Relics (Wenwu 文物) in 1984, more and more scholars were attracted to study and translate the Yijing. Edward L. Shaughnessy’s first translation of the Mawangdui Silk Manuscript of the Yijing made it accessible to academia worldwide, which surely helped its dissemination. Other manuscripts of the Yijing and related texts were excavated since the 1970s, for example, another manuscript of the Yijing was found at Shuagngudui 双古堆 in

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Fuyang 阜阳 of Anhui Province, Gui cang 归藏, or Returning to be Stored, were unearthed at Wangjiatai 王家台 of Hubei Province, and there is also the Shanghai Museum Manuscript of the Zhouyi, etc. All the translations of these manuscripts of the Yijing help people understand the Yijing in a deeper and more comprehensive way and contribute to the spread of the Yijing in the Western world. The translators of the Yijing also rely on the authoritative commentaries on the Yijing. First, they relied on the authoritative anthologies such as the Imperial editions of Daily Lectures on the Yijing and Balanced Annotations of the Zhouyi, and then they began to rely on Wang Bi’s Annotations of the Zhouyi, Cheng Yi’s Commentaries on the Yijing (or The Yi River Commentary on the Book of Changes), and Zhu Xi’s Introduction to the Study of the Classic of Change (I-hsüeh ch’i-meng) and The Original Meaning of the Zhouyi. With more and more translations of the Yijing in English and other languages, especially since the 1990s, the Yijing came to have more and more influence globally, and become part of world literature. Smith thinks this “globalization” of the Yijing was in part the product of its exalted reputation in China and its many alluring special features, and the spread of the Yijing was also facilitated by the self-conscious strategies employed by those who sought to use it in various environments for their own political, social, intellectual, or evangelical purposes (Smith 2008: 4). The translators surely have played a great part in this process of globalization. Acknowledgements This paper is supported by funding from the Foundation of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Hunan Province (Project Number: 21YBA031).

References Adler, Joseph A. 2002. Introduction to the Study of the Classic of Change (I-hsüeh ch’i-meng). New York: Global Scholarly Publications. Adler, Joseph A. 2019. The Original Meaning of the Yijing: Commentary on the Scripture of Change. New York: Columbia University Press. Blofeld, John. 1968. I Ching(The Book of Change): A New Translation of the Ancient Chinese Text with Detailed Instructions for Its Practical Use in Divination. New York: Penguin Compass. Cleary, Thomas. 1995. The Tao of Organization: The I Ching for Group Dynamics. Boston: Shambhala. Collani, Claudia von. 2007. The First Encounter of the West with the Yijing: Introduction to and Edition of Letters and Latin Translations by French Jesuits from The 18th Century. Monumenta Serica 55 (14): 227–387. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40727680. de Harlez, Charles. 1889. Le Yi-king traduit d’aprés les interprêtes chinois avec la version mandchoue. Brussels: F. Hayez. Fendos, Paul G. Jr. 2018. The Book of Changes: A Modern Adaptation & Interpretation. Wilmington, Delaware: Vernon Press. Harrington, L. Michael. 2019. The Yi River Commentary on the Book of Changes. New Haven and London: Yale University. Hon, Tze-ki. 2004. The Yijing and Chinese Politics: Classical Commentary and Literati Activism in the Northern Song Period, 960–1127. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

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Intorcetta, Prosperi et al. 1687. Confucius Sinarum Philosophus, Sive, Scientia Sinensis Latine Exposita. Paris: Apud Danielem Horthemels. Jiang, Rui. 2004. Richard Wilhelm’s Sinologist Life in Three Stages. In Between the East and the West: On Richard Wilhelm by Scholars from China and Abroad, ed. Lixin Sun and Rui Jiang, 98–112. Jinan: Shandong University Press. Knechtges, David R., and Taiping Chang. 2014. Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature: A Reference Guid (Part Three). Leiden & Boston: Brill. Knechtges, David R. 2004. The Perils and Pleasures of Translation: The Case of the Chinese Classics. Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies. 34 (1): 123–149. Kunst, Richard A. 1985. The Original Yijing: A Text, Phonetic Transcription, Translation, and Indexes, with Sample Glosses. (PhD. Dissertation, University of California at Berkeley). Lacouperie, Terrien de. 1882 and 1883. The Oldest Book of the Chinese (the Yh-King) and Its Author. Journal of Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 14: 781–815; 15: 237–289. Lee, Chi-fang. 1973. Wang T’ao (1828–1897): His Life, Thought, Scholarship, and Literary Achievement. The University of Wisconsin, PhD. Dissertation. Legge, James. 1892. The Yi King (The Texts of Confucianism from Sacred Books of China), vol. 16, Part II. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Li, Jingchi. 1981. The Comprehensive Meanings of the Zhouyi. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. Li, Weirong. 2020. Edward L. Shaughnessy and His Study of the Yijing -- With Special Reference to the Dialectical Relationship between Translation of Ancient Chinese Classics and Promotion of the International Influence of Chinese Culture. Foreign Language Research 215(4): 90–96. https://doi.org/10.16263/j.cnki.23-1071/h.2020.04.014. Li, Xueqin. 2000. The Influence of Newly Discovered Bamboo Books and Silk Manuscripts on Chinese Academic History. In Research on the Daoist Culture, ed. Guying Chen, 18: 1–9. Lin, Jinshui. 1988. A Brief History of Transmitting the Yijing into the West. Literature and History 29: 366–376. Liu, Dajun. 2009. The Mawangdui Silk Manuscript of the Yijing and the Yijing in the New Text Scholarship in Han Dynasty. Study on Confucian Classics and Thoughts, 1–11. https://doi.org/ 10.13540/b.cnki.scct.2009.00.020. Lynn, Richard John. 1994. The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi. New York: Columbia University Press. Magalhães, Gabriel de. 1688. Nouvelle Relation de la Chine, Contenant la Description des Particularitez les plus Considerable de ce grand Empire. Paris: C. Barbin. Martini, Martino. 1659. Sinicae Historiae decas prima, Res à gentis Origine ad Christum natum in extrema Asia, sive Magno Sinarum Imperio gestas complexa. Amstelædami: Joannem Blaev. McClatchie, Rev, and Canon Thomas. 1876. A Translation of the Confucian 易經 or the “Classic of Change” with Notes and Appendix. Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press. Minford, John. 2014. I Ching (Yijing), The Book of Change: The Essential Translation of the Ancient Chinese Oracle and Book of Wisdom. New York: Penguin. Mungello, David E. 1985. Curious Land: Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press. Nielsen, Bent. 2003. A Companion to Yijing Numerology and Cosmology: Chinese Studies of Images and Numbers from Han 漢 (202 BE – 220 CE) to Song 宋 (960 – 1279 CE). London & New York: RoutledgeCurzon. Pearson, Margaret J. 2011. The Original I Ching: An Authentic Translation of the Book of Changes. Tokyo, Rutland, Vermont, and Singapore: Tuttle Publishing. Philastre, Paul-Louis-Felix. 1885 and 1893. Tsheou Yi: Le Yi King ou Livre des changeents de la dynasties des Tsheou. Annales du Musée Guimet, Vols. VIII and XXIII. Paris: Leroux. Régis, Jean-Baptiste. 1834. Y-king, Antiquissimus Sinarum Liber Quem ex Latina Interpretatione, vol. I. editit Julius Mohl. Stuttgartiae et Tubingae. Rutt, Richard. 2002. The Book of Change (Zhouyi): A Bronze Age Document. London & New York: Curzon.

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Ryan, James A. 1996. Leibniz’ Binary System and Shao Yong’s “Yijing.” Philosophy East and West 46 (1): 59–90. https://doi.org/10.2307/1399337. Semedo, Álvaro. 1642. Imperio de la China. I Cultura Evangelica en èl, por los Religios de la Compañia de Iesus. Madrid: Iuan Sanchez. Shaughnessy, Edward L. 1996. I Ching: The Classic of Changes. New York: Ballantine Books. Shaughnessy, Edward L. 2014. Unearthing the Changes: Recently Discovered Manuscripts of the Yijing (I Ching) and Related Texts. New York: Columbia University Press. Sima, Qian. 2010. Biographies of Confucian Scholars from Grand Scribe’s Records. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. Smith, Richard J. 2008. Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World: The Yijing (I Ching, or Classic of Changes) and Its Evolution in China. Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press. Smith, Richard J. 2012. How the Book of Changes Arrived in the West. New England Review 33 (1): 25–41. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23267092. Smith, Richard J. 2013. Fathoming the Changes: The Evolution of Some Technical Terms and Interpretive Strategies in Yijing Exegesis. Journal of Chinese Philosophy 40 (S): 146–170. https:// doi.org/10.1111/1540-6253.12071. Wilhelm, Richard. 1928. The Soul of China, trans. John Holroyd Reece (with the poems trans. Arthur Waley). New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company. Wilhelm, Richard. 1975. The I Ching or Book of Changes, the Richard Wilhelm Translation rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Weirong Li has a PhD in Comparative Literature and is Professor of history in Yuelu Academy, Hunan University, China. His research interests focus mainly on the interpretation of the Confucian classics, especially the Yijing, in the West.

The Making of Translations: Voice of Translators

The Translation into Danish of Jin Ping Mei cihua—Jin Ping Mei i vers og prosa: personal recollections and reflections Vibeke Børdahl

Abstract In this article the author embarks on a journey in time, searching for the roots of her later decision to translate the Chinese roman fleuve, the masterwork of Jin Ping Mei, into her mother tongue, Danish. The aspirations of a young sinologist— forty years of encounters and coincidences along the road of teaching at home and doing research in China. A burning interest for the oral traditions of storytelling in China, the link between storytelling and novel, and finally finding by accidence an exceptional publisher who is ignited at the prospect of helping Jin Ping Mei see the day of light in Denmark. The experience, the models, the methods—ten years of hard and wonderful work. Keywords Arthur and Otto Kibat · André Lévy · David Tod Roy · Erotic descriptions · Jin Ping Mei cihua · Storytelling · Verse and prose · Wu Song tale · Yangzhou pinghua

In writing these recollections and reflections I am much inspired by Lintao Qi: Jin Ping Mei English Translations (Qi 2018). I think it would never have occurred to me to look back into my own life and speculate about how the project of translating Jin Ping Mei took form in my head. Translators used to be almost invisible. Had they not better stay so? Isn’t it preposterous to devote more than two lines to such matters? V. Børdahl (B) Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS), University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Qi and S. Tobias (eds.), Encountering China’s Past, New Frontiers in Translation Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0648-0_11

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1 How Was the Project of Translating Jin Ping Mei into Danish Initiated? As a young sinologist, I had an idea of introducing Chinese fiction for Scandinavian readers.1 Having studied Chinese in Copenhagen and Paris 1964–1968, I planned together with a Chinese fellow-student and friend, Liu Baisha (1943–2010), to produce a volume of modern Chinese short stories in Danish.2 After graduating in 1972, I almost continually had projects of translation in my spare time but did not consider myself a translator. It was con amore, but not always equally inspiring.3 During the early 1980s my interest turned to the Ming and Qing novels, and I planned another small translation project to introduce these masterworks to my students and to a general readership as well. For this book, published under the title Tigerdræberen Wu Song og andre historier fra de store kinesiske romaner [The Tiger-killer Wu Song and Other Stories from the Great Chinese Novels] (Børdahl 1989), I selected representative chapters from each of the six famous novels and wrote introductions for each: Sanguo yanyi [Three Kingdoms], Shuihu zhuan [Water Margin], Xiyou ji [Journey to the West], Jin Ping Mei [Jin Ping Mei], Rulin waishi [The Scholars], and Hong lou meng [A Dream of Red Mansions] (Børdahl 1989). I had chosen Chaps. 3 and 29 from Jin Ping Mei to exemplify the storytelling style (very outspoken in Chap. 3) and a typical description of the erotic playfulness (Chap. 29).4 Later Water Margin and Jin Ping Mei would stay most essential for my studies, but in quite different ways. This project was my first attempt at translating old baihua and acquainting myself with the world of these late imperial works. I was learning by doing. By no means a specialist or researcher of this literature, I was driven by my thirst to know more Chinese and love for the activity of translation as such. For my research activities, I had to use English as the lingua franca of our time, and for this purpose, I also 1

The three Scandinavian languages, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, are closely related, and many Scandinavian readers master them all. But the majority seem nowadays to prefer English as their second language. This is also the case with well-educated people, who are the main target readership for the great Chinese novels. Even if they are generally comfortable with the three Scandinavian languages, they likewise seem to prefer to read in their own mother tongue, alternatively in English. Among the languages of the Nordic countries, the Scandinavians do, generally, not understand Icelandic and Finnish. Therefore, I only treat translations into these languages sporadically in the present study. 2 Kinesiske noveller [Chinese Short Stories] (Børdahl and Liu 1971). The collection, including samples by Lu Xun, Mao Dun, Xiao Hong, Shen Congwen, and Qin Zhaoyang, was well-received by the critics and soon retranslated into Swedish. 3 I translated from several genres of literature and literary theory: a handful of stories from the 1930s and 1940s published in various journals, a small volume of stories and comics from the Cultural Revolution together with my students, Chinese Marxist literary theory for a two-volume anthology, a few Tang poems and poems by Mao Zedong, a collection of poems from the 1980s. Together with Søren Egerod (1923–1995), professor of Chinese in Copenhagen, I translated Shen Fu’s memoirs of 1809: Fu sheng liu ji, into Danish: Kapitler af et flygtigt liv [Chapters of a floating life] (Børdahl and Egerod 1986) one of my favourite Chinese books. 4 For the translation, I based myself on the typeset edition Jin Ping Mei cihua (1980–1981).

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translated not a few texts from Chinese into English, but it was translation into my own language, Danish, that gave me most satisfaction. I had graduated in Chinese linguistics with a thesis on the phonology of the Yangzhou dialect in synchronic analysis (1968) and diachronic investigation (1972). Educated in the Bernard Karlgren (1889–1978) tradition, I wanted to try out the methods of the Copenhagen school of phonology (Eli Fischer Jørgensen [1911– 2010]). During a scholarship in Paris 1967–1968, I was able to collect material for this study, and—by chance and good luck—my best informant was a newly immigrated man from Yangzhou. During those years, with the Cultural Revolution and the fact that I had small children, it was not possible for me to study in China. Later, during my early years as a teacher at Aarhus and Oslo Universities, I found no time or inspiration to continue along this line. It was my engagement with the great novels that led me back to Yangzhou and opened the way for me to study Chinese storytelling. Translating for the Tiger-killer anthology, I was much drawn to the kind of ‘storyteller persona’ that was embodied in these novels. I began to read a little here and there about Chinese storytelling, shuoshu. Thus, it dawned on me, that Yangzhou had a long and strong tradition of storytelling. During former short visits to China (1972, 1980) and a three months’ stay in Beijing (1984), I had never met anybody who was talking about storytelling.5 So, I presumed this art had died out long ago. But since the Yangzhou dialect was the subject of my linguistic studies in my student days, I decided to make a project about dialect literature, such as ‘Jokes in Yangzhou dialect’. In 1986 I had a chance to go to Yangzhou and Shanghai. During my short stay in Yangzhou, I tried to sound out the possibility of my ‘joke’ project, but also asked about Yangzhou storytelling. Did it still exist? Amazingly, I was a few days later introduced to a storyteller, Li Xintang (1935–2016), who was from the middleaged generation of the so-called ‘Wang School of Water Margin’, a well-known and popular performer of his day. Since I had just translated the chapter about ‘Wu Song and the tiger’ from Water Margin for my anthology, I felt at home with that story, and asked if he could tell it for me. There was no time for a real performance, but he told me a few jokes of storytelling and promised to send me a tape with the Wu Song story. That became my first piece of Yangzhou pinghua, which I listened to again and again and again, striving to come to grips with every sound and syllable (Børdahl 1996a, 287–308, 468). Storytelling had not died away. It was still there, right in the town of ‘my’ dialect. Thus, it was my work on the novels that sent me back to my former dialect study and started me on the road to Yangzhou storytelling. The fact that I later ended up translating the full work of Jin Ping Mei into Danish, was then again because of inspiration from this oral tradition. In 1989, I revisited Yangzhou for three months and began my studies of Yangzhou pinghua in earnest. Meanwhile, in 1988, I had bought my first copy of the Jin Ping 5

At Beijing University in 1984, I had been invited to a performance of drum-ballad singing, dagu shu, by Kate Stevens (1927–2016), at the time a stranger to me, but as I later realized, one of the pioneers of the CHINOPERL milieu in USA. But I did not associate this experience with storytelling.

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Mei cihua, the facsimile edition of the so-called Wanli edition (1617) (Quanben Jin Ping Mei cihua 1982/1987) just before my Danish anthology of the Chinese novels was published in 1989. This three-volume work was not the source for the Danish translation.6 I bought the facsimile edition ‘for the future’ but had no inkling of that future.

2 Yangzhou Storytelling and the ‘Storyteller’s Manner’ of the Ming Novels Right from the outset, there were certain things I wanted to find out about Yangzhou storytelling, Yangzhou pinghua, and there were unexpected features that made me curious. The main repertoires of Yangzhou pinghua were connected to the Ming novels by title and outline of content. But how far were the spoken performances connected to the novels?7 What kind of language was used for performance? Standard Chinese? Dialect? Did the language show special phonetic and/or grammatical features? Was the ‘storyteller’s manner’ of the novels reflected in Yangzhou storytelling, and if so, how? How did the storytellers of pinghua go about the use of storyteller’s stock phrases? This is not the place to go into all these questions. But I should like to draw attention to a few of the questions that initially puzzled me. The ‘storyteller persona’, the embedded narrating instance (Genette 1980, 212–227) of the Ming novels interested me early on so that I detected that Yangzhou was one of the important centres of oral storytelling in China. I found that the narrative instance of oral Yangzhou pinghua was basically the same kind of ‘voice’ that characterized the Ming novels, but with an important difference. The most obvious markers of the ‘storytelling persona’ in the novels was the use of extra-diegetic sentences, the so-called ‘storytellers’ stock phrases’. I expected that in a living tradition where ‘real’ storytellers of China were performing for a ‘real’ audience, such usage would be highly conspicuous. Contrary to my expectation, such usage was almost entirely absent. There were only a few expressions in the professional idiom of the Yangzhou storytellers reminiscent of such usage (Børdahl 1996a, 241). The novelistic convention of fixed formulas of introduction, transition, and conclusion8 were not used in the oral performance texts of my corpus, and dialectal or modernized versions of such wordings were not found.9 It was puzzling that the former stock phrases, seemingly representing some of the 6

Chaps. 3 and 29 were translated from Jin Ping Mei cihua 1980–1981. Cf. Børdahl 1996, Chapter VI: Narration and Chapter VII: Orality and Literacy. 8 Such as hua shuo [the story goes], bu zai hua xia [of that we’ll say no more], qie ting xiahui fenjie [please, listen to the explanation of the next session], etc. 9 The corpus of Yangzhou pinghua that I used for my investigation was entirely based on taperecorded sessions of storytelling from performers of the Wang School of Water margin and other schools. The main part of the corpus was from Water Margin, but repertoires from other schools such as Three Kingdoms and Journey to the West were also studied as contrastive material. I concentrated my study on the episode of ‘Wu Song and the Tiger’ for which I collected 7

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most evident features of orality in the written tradition of vernacular literature, had left so little trace in present-day storytelling from Yangzhou. One might wonder if these expressions were ever part of the oral tradition, or rather a literary convention of simulated storytelling from the very beginning. There was another feature of Yangzhou pinghua that I became keenly aware of, because of my interest in phonology: While making a close study of the phonetic habits of each storyteller in my corpus, I noticed that in performance, the artist would use, not only ordinary Yangzhou dialect pronunciation and grammar, but also ‘high-style’ Yangzhou guanhua, featuring different pronunciation habits, different grammatical patterns, and different choices of vocabulary. High-style was used for more serious narration, for the dialogue of high-ranking characters, as well as for poetry and other set pieces. Ordinary Yangzhou dialect was used for more humorous and light-hearted narration, storyteller’s comments and for the dialogue of ordinary characters, sometimes incorporating earthy dialect expressions, tuhua (Børdahl 2010, 93–122). Analysing the different registers of the Yangzhou storytellers, I became alerted to the existence of such ‘layers of language’, that are more obvious when you listen to oral performance and have occasion to observe the acting gestures and facial expressions that are integral components of the oral idiom. When a performance is written out in Chinese characters, even though you preserve every syllable of the oral ‘text’, much of the information from the oral form will disappear in the written form. If one is observant and familiar with the dialect, it is still possible to reconstruct much of the oral ‘soundscape’ for the inner ear, since some signals will stay in the text, such as special dialect vocabulary, grammatical patterns, pronouns, and the like. But if one is not familiar with the storytellers’ idiom from oral performances, most of the soundscape is lost. At the same time, the interplay between the various registers of performance becomes much less obvious, much less ‘pronounced’. For the ‘inside’ reader of a written rendition of a storyteller’s spoken text—an ‘insider’ in the sense of an afficionado of storytelling—the oral manifestation of such a text will still be latent, because such a reader ‘knows the game’, is familiar already with the language and the style to be expected, and is able to guess the rest from the few pointers in the written text. This phenomenon is important to keep in mind, when talking about Ming fiction. Patrick Hanan long ago pointed out the ‘change of gear’ that accompanies the transition from mode to mode in the vernacular fiction (Hanan 1967, 173). The lesson from Yangzhou pinghua is, indeed, that such diversification of language styles and dialectal usage, seems intimately connected to the oral aspects of the novel, if not directly to storytelling as an art.

items from as many as possible and often several versions by each storyteller, cf. Research Database on Chinese Storytelling, www.shuoshu.org.

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3 Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright My first item of Yangzhou storytelling was thus a tape-recording of ‘Wu Song da hu’ [Wu Song Fights the Tiger] as told by Li Xintang and sent to me in 1986. This became my entrance to Yangzhou pinghua. When I returned to Yangzhou three years later, I started from there. I knew by then that Li Xintang was a student of the famous Wang Shaotang (1889–1968), the founder of the Wang School of Water Margin (Wang pai Shuihu).10 My first step was to try to get into contact with other storytellers of this ‘school’ and then try to collect a corpus of ‘Wu Song and Tiger’ stories from as many as possible to study the language of these folk artists. I soon found out that this story was a kind of ABC for all the storytellers of the Wang School. It was their first story, the first story they were taught by their master and—as young apprentices—were expected to learn by heart. This story was also the first episode of the whole Water margin repertoire as told by the storytellers of the Wang School. In Yangzhou pinghua, the saga—unlike the novel Shuihu zhuan—started with the ‘Ten Chapters on Wu Song’, which would take up a whole season of about three months of daily performances. Then followed the ‘Ten Chapters on Song Jiang’, another three months. The Wang School had altogether four such ‘ten chapter’ cycles, but not all storytellers of Water Margin were able to master all of them. But they were all able to tell the Wu Song cycle, some ‘only’ for about two months, some for three months, depending upon their ability to develop the story. Mastering this part of the saga was a kind of graduation as a storyteller of the Wang School. My project on Yangzhou storytelling had this saga and this episode as core material. Most of the recordings were made in Yangzhou and Zhenjiang 1989 and 1992, and on the background of this material, I wrote my first book-length study that was accepted as my dissertation for the degree of Dr. Phil. at Copenhagen University (Børdahl 1996a). During the 1990s, I mainly continued my studies in this field, publishing books and articles about Yangzhou pinghua in English and Chinese.11 In 2004, I was invited to write a book about Chinese storytelling for Danish readers. The title was: Tiger, tiger—Wu Song og tigeren i kinesisk historiefortælling [Tiger, tiger—Wu Song and the tiger in Chinese storytelling] (Børdahl 2004). My publisher, Søren Møller Christensen, ran—as he told me—a ‘one-man, one phone’ publishing house called Vandkunsten Publishers. He was an experienced editor and publisher who recently had started up his own publishing house. Already the fact that he was interested in publishing a book about Chinese storytelling for Danish readers was extraordinary. His policy was to publish books that he found ‘sjove’ (the word 10

Wang Shaotang was the most famous storyteller in China in the 1950s and was mentioned on a par with the Beijing opera star Mei Lanfang (1894–1961). For this reason, he was honoured by being called the ‘founder’ of the Wang School. But his forefathers had also been storytellers of Water Margin and the roots for the transmission of oral storytelling are mostly nebulous for lack of evidence. As for the ‘Wu Song and Tiger’ episode, we know that it was already told by the famous storyteller Liu Jingting (1592–1674) from Taizhou that is situated inside the larger area of Yangzhou pinghua. 11 Se the online bibliography in Børdahl (2013, 514–516). http://norden.diva-portal.org/smash/get/ diva2:876583/FULLTEXT01.pdf.

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is hard to translate into English; maybe something between ‘catching’, ‘amazing’, ‘amusing’). He trusted that the books that had a wide appeal would pay for the books with less appeal, and he followed his ideals with zeal and integrity. The book took form in a few months, faster than anything else I had written, very much because of the inspiration that emanated from this editor-publisher. The day we were deciding about the last details of the beautifully designed Tiger book, standing around the dining table where the pages were spread out, I burst out without rhyme or reason: ‘I wish, I could once upon a time translate the Chinese novel Jin Ping Mei’. He looked at me and said: ‘Do it! I shall publish it for you!’.

4 The Purpose of Translation and the Purpose of Publishing I was taken aback by my outburst that day. I had not discussed translating Jin Ping Mei with anybody and was hardly aware of having this wish. I was convinced that such an undertaking was out of the question. It had been difficult enough to find publishers for my other translations of Chinese literature into Danish. In general, Danish and Norwegian publishers were not that interested. Such books were far from being bestsellers, and I am thankful to those publishers who had given support despite the situation. With these thoughts as the backdrop to my work, it must have been the atmosphere at the Vandkunsten dining table that suddenly ignited a spark. It is not so simple to explore one’s own motives and desires. I do, however, think that my wish to translate Jin Ping Mei into Danish was, in part, growing out of the general situation of the Chinese novel in Scandinavia at the time. From 1976 to 1996, professor Göran Malmqvist in Stockholm had translated two of the classics into Swedish in almost unabridged form, namely Shuihu zhuan and Xiyou ji.12 His student-colleague, a scholar of Swedish literature, Pär Bergman, had translated Hong lou meng.13 San guo yanyi, Jin Ping Mei, and Rulin waishi were still lacking in Swedish. Before these complete translations from Chinese saw the day of light, only shortened editions of Xiyou ji and Jin Ping Mei existed in the Nordic languages. These editions were based on famous adapted versions in the European main languages, German, English, and French, by translators who were not sinologists.14 A Finnish edition of Jin Ping Mei, 1955, had five printings and a total of 24,000 copies, which is 12

Shuihu zhuan (Berättelser från träskmarkerna, 1976–1979) and Xiyou ji (Färden till Västern, 1995–1996), translated by Göran Malmqvist (1924–2019). 13 Cao Xueqin: Hong lou meng (Drömmar om röda gemak, 2005–2011), translated by Pär Bergman (b. 1933). 14 Arthur Waley’s Monkey, 1942, was translated into Swedish by Einar Thermænius as Kung Markatta, 1949, and into Danish by Sven Damsholt as Det store kinesiske eventyr om Abekongen, 1983. Chin Ping Mei. Romanen om Hsimen och hans sex fruar, Swedish edition by Elsie and Håkan Tollet, 1950, was based on Franz Kuhn’s Kin Ping Meh oder die abenteuerliche Geschichte von Hsi Men und seinen sechs Frauen, 1930, as a shortened and expurgated version of Jin Ping Mei.

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a large impression from a Nordic perspective. Circulation of these abridged versions seems to have been considerably wider in those days than is the case for the complete editions translated and published in more recent years. There also existed a small booklet in Danish, entitled Glædeshuse (Houses of Joy), 1966, with a tenuous relationship to Jin Ping Mei.This piece of ‘soft porno’ was only brought to my attention much later.15 While it might have been more natural for me to translate Shuihu zhuan, since this was the focus of my ongoing research,16 I felt that the Swedish translation was already there to be enjoyed by the Scandinavian readers. It was not urgent to add a Danish translation of that work. I found stories from Three Kingdoms very entertaining when I listened to storytellers from Yangzhou and elsewhere, but in the bottom of my heart, I admit, that San guo yanyi was not my favourite. I would not be able to translate it, because I was not the right person to do it. Rulin waishi was a book very much to my liking, but it was more distant to me at the time, because this work had no counterpart in storytelling. It was instantly clear to me that Jin Ping Mei was the book for me. As a matter of fact, I felt more attracted to the opportunity to translate Jin Ping Mei than Shuihu zhuan. I was grateful that Malmqvist had already translated the latter and—so to say—left Jin Ping Mei for me. But what was the purpose of translating this voluminous novel of manners? Was there any money in such a project for the translator? No, one should be more than satisfied, if the books were published and one could manage to obtain funding for the publishing. I have had scholarships for research work, but rarely for translations. Was it for the sake of bringing this masterwork of the Chinese novel to the Danish and Nordic readers? Yes, of course. However, the real reason behind my wish to translate Jin Ping Mei was a deep-seated urge to ‘climb this mountain’. It would A translation into Finnish by Jorma Partanen was published in 1955 (new edition 1966), likewise based on the Kuhn translation. 15 After I had published three or four volumes of my Jin Ping Mei translation, a small book in Danish that looked like some kind of reader’s digest of Jin Ping Mei, was brought to my attention. Glædeshuse [Houses of joy] was a pastiche of the first 20 chapters of Jin Ping Mei, adding the death of Ximen Qing, translated into Danish by the editor, translator, and author of erotic literature, Georg Gjedde-Simonsen (pseudonym, georgjedde, 1913–1992). His ST was an obscure English edition authored by the pseudonym Wu Wu Meng under the title Houses of Joy, 1958, a book that is still readily available on the book market for ‘soft sham’. The author behind the pseudonym is Sinclair Beiles (1930–2000), a South-African writer belonging to the ‘beat-generation’ of Allen Ginsberg. This was his first book, published in Paris: Traveller’s Companion Series/The Olympia Press, 1958. I tried to read my way through the Danish version but found it utterly disgusting, not even worth to be called a caricature. One wonders what work might have served as the original for this, and if there was perhaps another person than Beiles behind the pseudonym Wu Wu Meng? The book cannot be counted among ‘translations’ or ‘adaptations’ of Jin Ping Mei. The connection to the original novel seems to be only that of ‘inspiration’ for pornography. Recently I have found my impressions confirmed in Qi (2018, 62–64, 70–71). 16 At the time, I was in the middle of writing the study Wu Song Fights the Tiger. The Interaction … (Børdahl 2013), a major project that I had worked on—on and off—since 1997. Among the various versions of the Wu Song story in oral and written genres, the Jin Ping Mei version belongs to the core material of that investigation.

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demand hard work and probably more than I could muster by way of linguistic and cultural competence. I would never have trusted myself to start this project were it not for the enthusiasm of the Vandkunsten editor. What about Jin Ping Mei as an erotic novel? Was this an inspiration for me or perhaps the opposite? I felt from the very beginning that this aspect is an intrinsic and organic part of the novel that editors and translators have no right to expurgate, rewrite, or translate into ‘secret’ languages such as Latin.17 I was drawn to this work, not because of the open and playful descriptions of sexual life, but surely also because of this. Moreover, I did not find these passages unpleasant or ugly, on the contrary. There is no lack of ugly sex exposed in our time in Western media of all kinds. But in Jin Ping Mei, the descriptions are amazingly intimate, erotic, sometimes wildly erotic, yet by no means ‘dirty’. The way some encounters are given detailed description, while others are merely touched upon, is masterly in itself.18 In the fall of 2008, I had a phone call from Søren Møller Christensen: ‘It is time for you to apply for a scholarship for your translation. The Danish Ministry of Culture is releasing a grandiose one-time sum for translations of cultural works. You must apply now!’ I did apply, and I did get the scholarship.19 So now I was obliged to start the project, whether I felt ready or not. This happened in 2009. In 2011, the first volume of Jin Ping Mei cihua was published in Danish. What was then the purpose of publishing the Danish translation of Jin Ping Mei? In a way it was pure folly: three thousand pages in ten volumes that were to be published year by year! Vandkunsten was extremely comforting and wanted to spend utter care on this book series, produced with special layout, good reproduction of the earliest set of 200 illustrations in woodcut,20 hard cover in white silken binding. The first volume won a Danish prize for exquisite book workmanship. Funding was found, though not easily. The purpose? If the book could earn enough to cover the expenditures, that would be more than we could hope for. Whether that will ever happen, is yet to be seen. But we stick to the conviction that one day the Danes will detect this book and begin to love it, like they love Steen Steensen Blicher, H.C. Andersen, Karen Blixen—like they love Cervantes, Charles Dickens, Marcel Proust, Thomas Mann.

17

As is well known, the first complete translation into English by Clement Egerton (1939), was published with part of the erotic passages (those considered pornographic) rendered in Latin. This was also still the custom adhered to twenty years later by Robert van Gulik in his work Sexual Life in Ancient China (1961, reprinted 1974, 1994, and 2002). In the last edition, the passages in Latin have for the first time been translated into English. 18 This is not meant to say that there is no ‘dirty’ language in Jin Ping Mei. In dialogue, one finds all kinds of language, characteristic of each character in the gallery of persons. 19 This was an unusually extravagant scholarship—wages for one year of full work. It took me ten years, but I was also occupied with several other book-length studies on Yangzhou storytelling and related matters. 20 The illustrations for the Danish edition are those of the Chongzhen edition (1628–1644), reproduced from the Xinke Jin Ping Mei cihua, published by Guji xiaoshuo kanxinghui, Beijing 1933, courtesy of the Fong Yun Wah Rare Book Room, C.V. Starr East Asian Library, University of California, Berkeley, USA.

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5 Linguistic Background and Models for Translation What was my linguistic background for translating the Jin Ping Mei? I had studied Chinese since I was 19 years of age, as a university student in Copenhagen, Paris, and Oslo. Post-graduate studies in China, in particular the long stays in Yangzhou, when I collaborated with the Yangzhou storytellers, were doubtless essential for improving my Chinese. In my generation, as a student of Chinese in Copenhagen, it was taken for granted that you also knew English, German, and French. Maybe the most important ‘baggage’ or ‘capital’, as it is called in translation studies, was my age, i.e., the slow accumulation of linguistic competence during a lifetime. I was 64 when I started the translation. Obviously, although this was the first translation into a Nordic language, it was not a ‘first translation’ from Chinese and it did not take place in a vacuum. At the time, when I began to work on this project, the Jinxue [Gold-studies], i.e., the scholarly field of Jin Ping Mei-studies, had long since reached enormous proportions, so much so that I was rather scared. I felt that it would take me another lifetime to get acquainted with all this knowledge and scholarship. I would get drowned, before I had started. So, I decided not to care too much about that, but just go ahead from where I was. My ‘capital’ on the target side, i.e., for creating the target text, TT, was my familiarity with Western literature in general and Nordic in particular. My mother-language, Danish, including Danish literature through all the periods, was the most important instrument to handle styles and vocabulary, aiming for a close translation in natural and unforced language. I was by no means convinced that I could manage. I had lived in Norway since the late 1970s. I had, however, never switched to Norwegian, because I did not want to speak a mixed language and loved my mother tongue. In the family we spoke Danish, my children were bilingual, and my husband spoke Norwegian. I knew that I had to be careful about certain expressions. How rusty was my Danish? Would it be possible? I was lucky. I found that my Danish was still there. It could be activated, and it had not left me. Moreover, I had a friend in Denmark who shared my interest in language and was not only willing, but eager to discuss my Danish translation. This was Marie-Louise Jørgensen, who had worked for a lifetime as editor of a prestigious book-series about the churches of Denmark. She had not only the formal qualifications for reviewing the translation, but she had a burning interest in it and an eagle’s eye. In this way, I could be safe that ‘Norwegianisms’ were soundly uprooted. However, our discussions went much further: If something did not quite ‘sound right’, we would discuss until we found exactly what we wanted. On the source side, i.e., the sources for the translation of the source text, ST, I used the facsimile edition of Jin Ping Mei cihua (1617) (Quanben Jin Ping Mei cihua 1982/1987).21 Besides the wealth of dictionaries that were available for Jin 21

The ST of the Wanli edition contains the novel proper in one hundred chapters, preceded by some paratexts in the form of prefaces and poems. I decided to bring only the novel proper in the Danish edition, because I felt the paratexts would scare readers away and have no interest for the general reader that the Danish edition was aiming at. Meanwhile my publisher has asked me to prepare a

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Ping Mei studies at that time, as well as the easy access to internet sources, I had three magnificent translations at hand in German, French, and English, completed by Western pioneers in Jin Ping Mei studies, the brothers Otto Kibat (1880–1956) and Artur Kibat (1878–1961) (Otto and Artur Kibat 1928–1932), André Lévy (1925– 2017) (Lévy 1985), and David Tod Roy (1933–2016) (Roy 1993–2013). The pre-war translation into German by the brothers Kibat was not based on the Wanli edition (1617) which had not been discovered at the time, but on a famous Qing edition established by Zhang Zhupo 1695, called Jin Ping Mei, diyi qishu [Jin Ping Mei, the First Extraordinary Novel] (Brömmelhörster 1990, 11, 127 note 56). The translation was a major contribution, being the first complete translation from Chinese into a European language of a well-reputed edition of Jin Ping Mei.22 It was no problem to see where the ST of this translation diverged from the ST of the Wanli edition (1617). This impressive German version, although I found it at times a bit ‘heavy’ and ‘Prussian’ in style, had many fortunate characteristics that I could draw on. My model and beau ideal in translating was, however, the eminent French sinologist, André Lévy. His translation into French Fleur en Fiole d’Or (Jin Ping Mei cihua) (1985) of the Wanli editionwas complete in the sense that the ST was faithfully rendered in every detail, but a certain amount of the song suites and set pieces had been left out.23 The two-volume edition was accompanied by rich, erudite, elucidating notes and other ‘paratexts’ of great help.24 What was more important to me than anything else was to observe Lévy’s ability to recreate the ST, not only in remarkable close translation, but in a most beautiful and captivating style. Obviously, he mastered Chinese and French to such a degree that he could transpose a wealth of linguistic styles. His French translation was a work of art worthy of the original. A generation later, one can only admire him as extraordinary translator and scholar, a great inspiration. The translation by David Tod Roy was the first complete translation into English of the Wanli edition, entitled The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P’ing Mei (1993– 2013). While this work was a mine of knowledge about the literary context of Jin Ping Mei and the translation in most cases remarkably close to the ST, I often found myself at odds with the choices made by Roy. In his translation nothing from the ST was left out. On the contrary, he often added external knowledge to the translation, guide to the reading of Jin Ping Mei i vers og prosa for Nordic readers. This will be the right place for me to discuss the paratexts of the Wanli edition. 22 At the time it was not generally known that during the years 1862–1869, the German eminent linguist Hans Conon von der Gabelentz (1807–1874) had translated the Manchu translation of Jin Ping Mei into German, almost complete, but left in manuscript form. The manuscript was lost, and not detected until 1998. Recently this translation has been edited and published by Martin Gimm as Jin Ping Mei: chinesischer Roman, erstmals vollständig ins Deutsche übersetzt, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, 2005–2013 (Gimm 2005). 23 Cf. note 33. 24 Lévy’s edition was printed on papier bible, the thin and strong paper generally used by Gallimard. Therefore, despite being amply annotated and containing a wealth of other extra material, the book was published in only two volumes of normal size, easy to hold in the hand and read at leisure.

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not in the form of notes, but in the form of developed TT. Furthermore, the translation was arranged in such a way that Chinese set phrases of many kinds were indented in the text to highlight such wordings and vocabulary. This was not a feature of the ST which has a normal layout with indentation only of poems and set pieces. I felt sceptical of such arrangement, as I have argued in some early reviews (Børdahl 1996b, 272–276, Børdahl 2003b, 303–308). Be that as it may, there should be no doubt about the usefulness of Roy’s achievement for my personal struggle with the text. The Plum will stay as an indispensable textbook and handbook for students and teachers of Jin Ping Mei in the West.

6 Critical Reflection on My Translation Process When I write these lines, I have just finished the translation of Chapter 100 of the Jin Ping Mei cihua.25 I have spent more than ten years on the translation work. Maybe it is too early for me to ‘reflect’ on the translation process. But since the editor of the present volume has asked this question, let me try to answer. One of the factors I had in mind since the beginning of undertaking the translation was time. When I started the work, I thought I might be able to finish the translation in about three years. I was aware that if I wanted to finish the work within that time, I must work fast. Therefore, I knew from the beginning that there was a limit to how much time I could use on researching the details of every page of translation. I had the choice between never getting finished and getting finished. This was a fundamental choice: I wanted to get finished. I soon realized that three years was impossible for me, but although I gave myself more time, the timeframe was still limited. So, I soon established my own yardstick of progress. I had to follow an inner voice telling me: ‘Now this sentence is as good as you can get it. Go on!’ I realize that this is a general condition for all translators, but when you are confronted with a text of this difficulty and such enormous length, you are keenly aware of being only a human being with a limited number of years ahead. There was another factor that influenced the translation: Vandkunsten wanted to publish the work year by year as the ten-chapter volumes were finished. I liked the idea, and it was of course inspiring to see the volumes in print. In retrospect, it is, however, clear that this way of publication has certain drawbacks. Once you have decided on a certain layout and strategy for the first volume, you must stick to that in the following volumes, despite eventual second thoughts. As for the general layout, I felt no regret. But there were certain usages that were not so easy to settle and follow up with consequence. I worked out a set of rules and lists to regulate such phenomena, but between the first and the second volume, we were late in detecting several irregularities. After that we decided to follow the first volume whenever possible and add rules as new phenomena turned up.

25

My translation of Chapter 100 was finished on April 27, 2021.

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7 A Novel in a Hundred Chapters The main text of the novel—the one hundred chapters divided into ten-chapter cycles—is the essential form of this work.26 Storytellers traditionally worked in fixed periods of ten days, the unit that constitutes the old Chinese week (xun). They were engaged by the teahouse owner to perform for ten-day periods. Each period should contain an independent series of performances, so that it was possible to tell only one such part of the whole tale and then make a stop. After that, the storyteller might come back and continue his repertoire on a later occasion. But he could also tell several ten-day tales in a row, for example, performing each day in the teahouse for two to three months, corresponding to six or nine xun. Therefore, the phenomenon of cycles of ten days of storytelling (shi hui), i.e., one session (hui) per day of the ten-day week, was a most natural phenomenon with storytellers, and this is often reflected in the Ming novels, conspicuously in Water Margin and Jin Ping Mei. The length of each session used to be about three hours in former times (nowadays two hours) something that corresponds amazingly well with the normal length of a chapter (hui) (Børdahl 2019, 115–117). To preserve the ten-chapter structure of the work was important to me, and in such a format each volume (between ca. 250 to 450 pp.) had a natural and agreeable size for the Danish reader. I did not add titles to each volume, since no such subtitles exist in the ST.27 The ten-volume roman fleuve format is uncommon, but far from unheard of in European fiction, so that the publication as such represents the idea of what it is—a novel.

8 Challenges of Translation and Creative Solutions The Ming novels in general, and Jin Ping Mei in particular, are, like the Western novel, characterized by shifting modes and rendition of individual speech, the socalled heteroglossia in the sense of M.M. Bakhtin: ‘The novel orchestrates all its themes, the totality of the world of objects and ideas expressed in it, by means of the social diversity of speech types and by the differing individual voices that flourish under such conditions. Authorial speech, the speeches of narrators, inserted genres, the speech of characters are merely those fundamental compositional unities with whose help heteroglossia can enter the novel; each of them permits a multiplicity of social voices and a wide variety of their links and interrelationships. These distinctive links and interrelationships between utterances and languages, this movement of the 26

Lévy clearly divided his translation according to these ten-chapter cycles and added a title to each cycle. There is, however, no precedence for adding such titles in the ST. Roy added titles to each twenty-chapter volume, likewise with no foundation in the ST, maybe such titles were demanded by the publisher. 27 Another feature of Yangzhou storytelling, Yangzhou pinghua, that comes to mind is the lack of subtitles for the great repertoires. Titles do not belong to this oral art. Everybody knows what saga the storyteller is performing, and the storyteller never informs his audience about what he is going to tell that day or for the coming period (2019, 109–113).

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theme through different languages and speech types, its dispersion into the rivulets and droplets of social heteroglossia, its dialogization – this is the basic distinguishing feature of the stylistics of the novel’ (Bakhtin 1981, 236 and elsewhere). The ability to reflect this linguistic ‘polyphony’ of the ST in the translation seems to me the greatest challenge, but also the most intensive joy for the translator. Whether a translator has to some degree succeeded in transferring the stylistic nuances and individual voices must be evaluated by others. It is only in contact with the readers that the success or failure of such strivings can be evaluated. From the outset of the project of translating Jin Ping Mei into Danish, it was my conviction that the work should be presented as a novel, not as a work of research or an encyclopaedia of Chinese culture. I wanted to deliver a close translation, but not a ‘strange’ translation. I did not want to enter any extra information into the running translation. Therefore, I decided on a simple solution, where the reader was expected to be alert to ‘special expressions and phenomena’, which could be looked up in a List of Words at the end of the volume. Only a few footnotes were added to each chapter, mostly to direct the reader to this list. The potential readership for the Danish edition was envisaged as the general educated non-specialists, the people who enjoy classics from all over the world. As for Danish as the TL vis á vis Chinese as the SL, I think the problems are not much different from those of the main languages of Europe: English, German, and French. Danish is closely related to both English and German, while French is somewhat more distant. I am not aware of any features of Danish lexicon, grammar, syntax, or phonology that deviate to such a degree from these other European languages that they need special mention here. Other challenges of translation, such as the handling of proper names of persons and places, terms of address, titles, honorifics, invectives, and other recurring vocabulary, were solved by establishing lists of terms for my own need and striving for consequence. Some special problems will be treated below.

9 Proper Names and Terms of Address: List of Names The problem of proper names in Chinese and how to transfer them to the TL seems never to have found an ideal solution in any translation. There are many reasons for that. The Chinese writing system, Hanzi, is not known by the Western audience that is the target readership. The pinyin transcription is ‘readable’ because it is alphabetic, but it is difficult to internalize and feel acquainted with, unless you are a student of Chinese. There was a custom to translate the names of women and servants (male and female) but leave the names of men of status untranslated in transcription. This might lessen the burden on the Western readers in remembering the names, but it seemed to me inadequate as a principle, since there was no similar distinction between men, women, and servants in the SL. To have a translated name was therefore a kind of automatic discrimination that did not exist in the ST. To translate all the names, whether male or female, also felt awkward. Furthermore, the procedure of translating

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the names gave a kind of exotic flavour to the whole text that was not an integral feature of the ST. After all, Chinese names (Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai etc.) are not rendered in translated forms under normal circumstances. For these various reasons, I decided to keep all the names in pinyin and make a ‘List of Names of Characters in the Novel’ at the end of each volume, including the characters that were mentioned in that volume. For the characters that have a certain intertextual life in the West, a translation was provided in the List of Names, such as Pan Jinlian, Gyldne Lotus (Jinlian, Golden Lotus). The list also included the various terms of address for each person with cross references, such as ‘femtesøster’ (wujie, Fifth Sister), ‘sjettesøster’ (liujie, Sixth Sister), ‘femtefrue’ (wuniang, Fifth Wife), all pointing to Pan Jinlian. Cases of mingling of terms that might lead to confusion were pointed out in the list, such as ‘sjettesøster’ (liujie, Sixth Sister) meaning most often Pan Jinlian (as the sixth child of tailor Pan), in rare cases Li Ping’er (as the sixth wife of Ximen Qing), sometimes Sjettesøster Wang (Wang Liu’er, Sixth Sister Wang) in that case it would, however, be written in upper-case (in Danish), Sjettesøster, since this is not only a term of address, but the real name of this character. Nicknames were translated, such as the moneylender Upålidelige Xu (Xu Buyu, Unreliable Xu) and Tigger Ying (Ying Huazi, Tigger Ying). The members of the brotherhood were all given translated nick names, such as Junkeren (Ying Bojue, Cavalier), Lykkeridderen (Xie Xida, Knight of Fortune). This reduced somewhat the number of names in pinyin transcription and was felt as a natural usage for both SL and TL.

10 Linguistic Explanations and Cultural Background: List of Words In order to reduce notes in the text to a minimum, I also prepared a ‘List of Words’ for each volume, containing explanations of expressions as well as names of figures from Chinese cultural history and mythology. However, historical persons who figured as characters in the novel were placed in the ‘List of Names’. As for annotation, there were about 3–5 short footnotes for each chapter. The two lists, the ‘paratexts’ of the edition, took up about 20 pages in each volume. Together with the footnotes, such extratextual material amounted to less than 5% of the total amount of text. The number of paratextual pages could have been further reduced, if one had decided to place this information only in the last volume or in a separate volume. But the idea was to furnish these ancillary lists for ready reference no matter which volume the reader was holding in his/her hand. Since the lists were prepared separately for each volume, there was only partial overlapping. The proportion of paratextual lists vis á vis main text corresponds roughly in volume to the extra commentary booklet provided for the Kibat edition (7% of the total amount of pages). In Lévy’s French edition approximately 25% of the total number of pages was paratextual (tables, notes, etc.), but the book was still ‘novellike’ because of the exquisite paper and binding in only two volumes. The Roy edition

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had the most voluminous paratextual critical apparatus, amounting to 40–50% of the pages of each volume (Qi Lintao 2018, 117), something that detracted from the genre-characteristics of Jin Ping Mei as a novel and might in a non-specialist reader’s opinion transfer the five-volume edition to the category of learned monographs or handbooks.

11 Place Names, Set Phrases, and Storyteller’s Stock Phrases Real place names were written in pinyin according to modern custom, i.e., Qinghe distrikt (Qinghe xian), Dongping præfektur (Dongping fu). Fictive place names were mostly translated, i.e., Rubinstræde (Zishijie, Ruby Lane), Løvegade (Shizijie, Lion Lane), Garverstræde (Niupixiang, Tanners’ Lane), Femmile Kroen (Wuli dian, Five Mile Inn), Marmorbroen (Shiqiao, Marble Bridge), Jadekejserens Tempel (Yuhuang miao, Jade Emperor’s Temple); sometimes they were left in pinyin transcription, if I felt a translation would be too ‘heavy’ or cumbersome, i.e., Yongfu-klosteret (Yongfu si), Dizang-klosteret (Dizang si). But I had no strict rule for that. In retrospect, I think I might as well have translated all those temple-names. As for set phrases of many kinds, idioms, adages, sayings, proverbs, I tried to find translations in Danish that would—as far as possible—not only render the meaning, but also present linguistic features of a similar kind of phraseology and wordplay, such as ‘frænde er frænde værst’ (danghang yan danghang, Chap. 3).28 Some set phrases were reiterated in the text corpus with higher or lower frequency, such as ‘svajende som en blomst for brisen, med det broderede bæltebånd svirpende gennem luften, let og gesvindt som at sætte lys i stage’ (huazhi zhaozhan, xiudai piaopiao, chazhuo ye si, Chap. 20) that reoccurs in full or shortened form regularly when young women are doing ketou.29 Another example is ‘fra den årle morgen ilede de ad jordbrune stier, og silde om kvæld trampede de stadig i det røde støv; når de var sultne, spiste de, og når de var tørstige, drak de; månen var deres hat og stjernerne deres kappe (zhao deng zi mo, mu jian hongchen, ji can ke yin, dai yue pi xing, Chap. 18).30 Once I had decided upon the translation for such items, I tried to keep track of them and translate them in the same way wherever they came up in the text. In 2016, I gained access to an electronic version of the ST which was helpful in this 28

I use a Danish set phrase of old-standing for the Chinese idiom; the translation is a little less exact, since ‘frænde’ does not mean exactly ‘people in the same trade’, but ‘people of the same kind’. The expression does not have an equivalent in English but means something like: ‘people are worst towards their own kind’. 29 Roy’s translation is in this case close to the Danish: Like a sprig of blossoms swaying in the breeze; Sending the pendants of her embroidered sash flying; Just as though inserting a taper in its holder. 30 Roy’s translation is also in this case close to the Danish: Every morning they took to the purple road; Each evening they trampled the red dust. When hungry they ate, when thirsty they drank; Proceeding by moonlight, enveloped in stars.

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and many other respects. It was important to me that such phraseology should be part of the running text, like in the ST. I do not agree with David Roy that the reader would need to be specifically alerted to such language. On the contrary, I consider such wordings part and parcel of the stream of utterances that make up both the narrator’s voice and the individual voices of the characters. To cut the text up would neither be true to the original ST, nor to the Chinese language as such, since the phenomenon of set phrases is universal and not specific for Chinese. However, I also had my own hobbyhorse: the storytellers’ stock phrases. Since I began to read the Ming and Qing novels, I was fascinated by ‘the storyteller’s manner’, also called the ‘oral model’ (Idema 1974, 70; Hanan 1981, 20–21, see also Børdahl 2003a, 65–112). While this phenomenon was highly explicit in the Chinese late imperial novels, it was mostly downplayed in the translations. The extra-diegetic phrases signalling beginning, transition, and conclusion of each ‘session’ (hui) were often treated as superfluous stereotypes that the translator would either suppress or diversify so that they should not be felt boring by the target audience.31 For me, the ‘manner’ was an important and integral characteristic of the ST. I wanted to preserve these expressions, forming a continuously returning set of ‘directives’ pointing to the storytelling framework of the narration. For the translation work, I established a long list of such expressions and translated them in the same way each time.32 In order to give emphasis to the storyteller’s manner and alert the reader to this characteristic of the novel, I decided to bring all these expressions in upper case letters, such as: DET FORTÆLLES (hua shuo, the story goes), HEROM FORTÆLLER HISTORIEN IKKE VIDERE (bu zai hua xia, no more of this in our story), HVILKET SYN (danjian, behold), DET ER SÅ SANDT SOM DET ER SAGT (zhengshi, truly), etc. This was, surely, an expedient that did not have a parallel in the ST, where these expressions are not given any special treatment of layout. For Chinese readers, the storytellers’ manner is a matter of course, but for Western readers, it is not so. Whether this was a successful strategy, I must leave to the readers to answer.

31

In the Kibat translation only a few fixed formulae of this kind are preserved, mainly tags before sayings. This seems to be largely a consequence of following the Qing edition of 1695 that was the ST of the German translation. In Lévy’s French translation, based on the Wanli cihua edition, the stock phrases are most of the time translated, but apart from the tags for poems, they are not rendered as completely fixed formula, but given a variety of slightly divergent forms and incorporated seamlessly into the narrative. Even the chapter-concluding stock phrase bijing wei zhi houlai ruhe qie ting xiahui fenjie is diversified and not kept as a petrified expression like it is in the ST. In Roy’s English translations, these stock phrases are generally faithfully translated in the same way on each occurrence, but not always (Børdahl and Ge 2022). However, Roy has not indented these expressions like he did with other fixed expressions, so that their status as petrified framework to the tale is underplayed. 32 For some expressions, such as yuanlai, which is on the borderline to being a ‘storyteller’s stock phrase’ and just a regular adverb, I felt the need to use several translations, such as: det er klart (evidently), det forholdt sig sådan (it was a matter of), i grunden (actually), i virkeligheden (in reality), ikke uden grund (not without reason), sagen var (as a matter of fact), sandt at sige (to tell the truth), but mostly I could stick to just one translation of each formula.

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12 Verse and Prose The Danish translation is complete, also in the sense that all the verse, i.e., poems, songs, and set pieces of the ST are included. Moreover, poems and songs are rendered in poetic form of the TL, i.e., the poems and songs are always presented in poetic style of Danish. Rhythm, rhyme, alliteration, poetic vocabulary, and poetic sentence structure are used to give the poems and songs the flavour of poetry. It is not possible to transfer the linguistic features of Chinese poetry to the TL, but by applying the linguistic features of Danish poetry a similar effect is evoked. Sometimes, for the sake of rhyming, some of the meaning was lost.33 But it felt worthwhile to sacrifice a little on the semantic side, gaining the explicit poetic style as a marked contrast to the prose style. The verse of the ST is usually indented, so that the characteristic of the continuous shifting between verse and prose is not only marked by the poetic form of the verse, but also made explicit by the page layout. This principle is also followed in the Danish edition: the verse is rendered in italics with each stanza given a separate line, only rarely spilling over to the following line.34 Let me add as an example the Danish version of the ‘poem in seven words’ (qi yan shi) found in Chap. 7935 : 二八佳人體似酥, 腰間仗劍斬愚夫 雖然不見人頭落, 暗里教君骨髓枯 En skønhed på seksten somre, en krop så blød over al forstand. I skødet hun gemmer det blanke sværd og fælder den tåbe til mand. Ingen ser mandens hoved rulle i dette hellige sekund. I løndom suges marven ham ud af rygradens knoglebundt.

33

In my treatment of verse, I am basically in agreement with Lévy who also rendered verse in poetic form. It is a strange feature of the French translation that Lévy, despite professing to establish a complete translation of the Wanli cihua edition, still chose to leave out a considerable part of the poetry with the argument that it had been removed from later editions. I wonder if he was pressed by his publisher to keep the book within certain limits, or if he felt pressed for time. Roy was the only Western translator to include all the verse. However, he chose to translate poetry very much like he translated prose, i.e., a close translation of the semantic contents with little or no application of poetical style. Verse was typeset in a smaller font and indented, but since almost every page was full of indented set phrases, the visual impression of verse versus prose was less than obvious. On the contrary, the reader would constantly be confronted with pages of dissected language, and verse would just be a subgroup of such ‘cut out’ speech. As for the Kibat brothers, they translated verse into poetic form, but their ST, the Qing edition of 1695, is different from the Wanli edition in respect to the verse portions, so that comparison is mostly futile. 34 Prose-poems and other set pieces are also in italic font, but not arranged as stanzas. 35 This poem has been discussed in Brömmelhörster (1990, 102–106). From the Danish version, it should be possible to observe the use of rhyme, rhythm, and alliteration. Other features such as poetic sentence structure and vocabulary are not obvious to readers, who do not know Danish. This is not the place to go further into such details.

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13 Sexual Life and Erotic Descriptions To me, the description of sexual life in Jin Ping Mei cihua was obviously essential for understanding the deepest motivations for the work. The psychology of the individual characters, the lifestyle in general, the manners and customs of the late Ming society, were all intimately woven together with the erotic. I do not agree with Roy’s opinion: ‘I believe that it was never any part of the author’s intent to celebrate the pleasures of sex and that the sexual acts that he explicitly describes, and which have won the novel such notoriety, are intended, in fact, to express in the most powerful metaphor available to him the author’s contempt for the sort of persons who indulge in them’ (Roy 1993, ‘Introduction’, xxxvii). I hold the opposite view, namely that the work presents a ‘celebration of the pleasures of sex’ as a driving force in human life. Just as in the case of the moralizing exhortations, the author seems to speak with a ‘double tongue’, both ‘serious’ and at the same time ‘poking fun’. While some of the erotic passages seem honestly engaging (and sometimes quite beautiful, as I see it), other passages appear to be blown up even to the farcical. This reminds of the Japanese erotic pictures by Hokusai and others, where the genitals are given unheard of size and exuberant depiction. These pictures are in fact very erotic, much in contrast to the woodcuts in the Chongzhen edition. Jin Ping Mei cihua demonstrates the same art of ‘painting’ the erotic life with words, in contrast to the pictures that are completely ‘matter of fact’—trousers down, and that is it. My overall aim as a translator could only be to mediate this view of the work. The translator’s attitude towards the ST will—as I see it—necessarily influence the general tone of translation.36 Sticking to the heteroglossia of the novel as a genre, it was my wish to transmit not only the words of the erotic passages, but their atmosphere. The narrator’s voice as manifested in these passages seems to share these euphoric moments, whether moral or immoral according to the rules of the given society. The characters who participate in the sexual acts express themselves in straightforward, even rude language, something that does not in my view reflect ‘the author’s contempt’. The specific erotic terms, coined in catching metaphors from flora and fauna, are important as signifiers of the beauty and playfulness of the sexual encounters. In the Danish translation, they are kept everywhere without notes or explanation. The reader is referred to the List of Words, where they are explained.37

36

As demonstrated in Qi Lintao (2018, 205–206), Roy in between prefers to use an ‘anatomical term that carries a blatantly pornographic overtone’. While I do not find such passages in Roy’s translation pornographic, I agree that there is often an overt ‘medical’ or ‘clinical’ tone, detracting from the erotic fullness of the ST. 37 In the Nordic countries of the twenty-first century, there is little bigotry about sexual life. The publisher would have no problems in publishing the erotic portions of the work. However, some readers, for various reasons, might be offended.

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14 Conclusion The narrator of Jin Ping Mei cihua as manifested in many a didactic poem, in exhortations to the audience, and in many other subtle ways, is raising a warning voice. But that voice is just one among many, and it has more than often a mocking ring to it. Even though the whole work can be analysed as an epitaph of the doomed Ximen Qing, his family, and the Northern Song dynasty (Carlitz 1986, Chap. 7), it also rooms a force of life that holds the reader spellbound to the last page. The dualistic principle of shifting between joy and sorrow, true and false, good and bad, ascendance and descendance, life and death, embodied in Chinese yin-yang philosophy, is not a foreign element in Western thought, either. But general ideas like these are hardly sufficient to understand this enigmatic work. As André Lévy said: ‘La clé qui ouvrirait toutes les portes du roman ne sera pas de sitôt forgée’. [The key that might open all the doors to this novel is not likely to be forged so soon] (Lévy 1985, ‘Introduction’, lxviii). As a translator, I have for more than ten years enjoyed tremendously my daily confrontation with the facsimile pages of this work. Maybe there will still be a time for the discoveries and reflections of rereading?

References Bakhtin, Michael M. 1981. Discourse in the Novel. In The Dialogic Imagination. Four Essays by MM. Bakhtin, ed. Michael Holquist, University of Texas Press. Brömmelhörster, Jörn. 1990. Chinesishe Romanliteratur im Western. Eine Übersetztungskritik des mingzeitlichen Romans JIN PING MEI, Bochum: Brockmeyer. Børdahl, Vibeke. 1989. Tigerdræberen Wu Song og andre fortællinger fra De Store Kinesiske Romaner, [The Tiger-killer Wu Song and Other Stories from the Great Chinese Novels]. Oslo: Solum Forlag, and Copenhagen: Nansengade Antikvariat & Forlag. ———. 1996a. The Oral Tradition of Yangzhou Storytelling, [Chinese title: Yangzhou pinghua tantao]. Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Monograph Series, No.73. Richmond: Curzon Press. Chinese editions, Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2005, and Nanjing: Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 2016. ———. 1996b. Book review: The Plum in the Golden Vase, or CHIN P’ING MEI. Volume One: The Gathering. In Acta Orientalia, trans. David Tod Roy, vol. 57, Princeton 1993. ———. 2003a. The Storyteller’s Manner in Chinese Storytelling. Asian folklore Studies : 62–1. ———. 2003b. Book review: The Plum in the Golden Vase, or CHIN P’ING MEI. Volume Two: The Rivals. In Acta Orientalia, Transl. David Tod Roy, vol. 64. Princeton 2001. ———. 2004. Tiger, tiger. Wu Song og tigeren i kinesisk historiefortælling [Tiger, tiger. Wu Song and the tiger in Chinese storytelling]. with photos by Jette Ross, Copenhagen: Vandkunsten Forlag. ———. 2010. Dialectal and normative registers in Yangzhou storytelling. Chinese Language and Discourse 1 (1). ———. 2013. Wu Song Fights the Tiger: The Interaction of Oral and Written Traditions in the Chinese Novel, Drama and Storytelling, Copenhagen: NIAS Press. ———. 2019. Revisiting Western Han in Written Script and in Oral Performance: Language, Style, Length, and the Question of Exegesis. In CHINOPERL 38 (2). Børdahl, Vibeke and Liangyan Ge. 2022. Pinghua and cihua in Jin Ping Mei cihua. In Collected essays on Jin Ping Mei, ed. Vibeke Børdahl and Lintao Qi, Copenhagen: NIAS Press.

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Børdahl, Vibeke, and Liu Baisha (editors and translators). 1971. Kinesiske noveller [Chinese Short Stories]. Oslo: Pax Forlag, and Copenhagen: Borgen. Carlitz, Catherine. 1986. The Rhetoric of Chin p’ing mei. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Egerton, Clement (translator). 1939. The Golden Lotus: A Translation, From the Chinese Original of the Novel Chin P’ing Mei. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Genette, Gérard .1980. Narrative Discourse, trans. Jane E. Lewin. New York: Cornell UP. Gimm, Martin. 2005. Hans Conon von der Gabelentz und die Übersetzung des chinesischen Romans Jin Ping Mei. Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz Verlag. Hanan, Patrick. 1967. The early Chinese Short story: A Critical Theory in Outline. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 27. Hanan, Patrick. 1981. The Chinese Vernacular Story. Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press. Idema, Wilt. 1974. Chinese Vernacular Fiction: The Formative Period. Leiden: Brill. Jin Ping Mei cihua. 1980–1981. Taibei: Zengnizhi wenhua sheye gongsi. Kibat, Otto und Artur. 1928–1932. Djin Ping Meh—Schlehenblüten in goldener Vase. Ein Sittenroman aus der Ming-Zeit. Published in full by Herbert Franke, Die Waage: Hamburg: 1967–1983, vol. I-V + VI (a small volume of commentary). Lévy, André. 1985. Fleur en Fiole d’Or (Jin Ping Mei cihua), vols. I + II. La Pléiade, Gallimard. Malmqvist, Göran (translator). 1995–1996. Färden till Västern [Journey to the West], vol. 1–5. Höganäs: Bra Böcker. Qi Lintao. 2018. Jin Ping Mei English Translations. London and New York: Routledge. Quanben Jin Ping Mei cihua. 1982/1987. Hong Kong: Taiping shuju, facsimile edition, 1. printing 1982, 5. printing 1987. Research Database on Chinese Storytelling, www.shuoshu.org. Roy, David Tod. 1993–2013. The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P’ing Mei, vols. I–V. Princeton UP. Shen Fu (author). Børdahl and Egerod (translators). 1986. Kapitler af et flygtigt liv [Chapters of a floating life]. Copenhagen: Rhodos. van Gulik, Robert Hans. 1961. Sexual Life in Ancient China. Leiden: Brill.

Vibeke Børdahl, PhD., is Senior Research Fellow at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS), University of Copenhagen. Specializing in Chinese language and literature, dialectology, and oral performance culture, she has taught at the Nordic Universities of Aarhus, Oslo, and Copenhagen. Her most recent book-length studies in English on Chinese storytelling traditions include Wu Song Fights the Tiger—The Interaction of Oral and Written Traditions in the Chinese Novel, Drama and Storytelling (NIAS Press, 2013) and with Liangyan Ge and Wang Yalong eds: WESTERN HAN. A Yangzhou Storyteller’s Script (NIAS Press, 2017). She has also published the “Research Database on Chinese Storytelling” on the website www.shuoshu.org. Her major works are currently published in Chinese. Vibeke Børdahl has recently finished her translation of Jin Ping Mei cihua (1617) into Danish, Jin Ping Mei i vers og prosa, 3000 pages, ten volumes. Seven volumes have appeared, and the final three volumes are scheduled for publication by Forlaget Vandkunsten, Copenhagen, in 2021-2022.

On Translating Jin Ping Mei into Czech Lucie Olivová and Ondˇrej Vicher

Abstract This contribution aims to provide general insight into translating the novel Jin Ping Mei 金瓶梅 into Czech. Part one, written by Lucie Olivová, provides a brief introduction to the translation history of traditional Chinese literature into Czech, followed by a report on our translation of the Wanli edition, taken over from the late professor Oldˇrich Král, which began at the beginning of 2020. In Part two, Ondˇrej Vicher consequently describes the joint translation process, concisely introduces the main features of the Czech language, and analyzes the specific translation issues which both current translators encountered, most of them having been caused by the specifics and peculiarities of the Czech language. Keywords Translation · Czech language · Joint translation process · Jin Ping Mei · Chinese literature

1 Part One 1.1 A General Outline of Translations of Traditional Chinese Literature and Novels into Czech There are two renditions of Jin Ping Mei (JPM) into the Czech language, and both are very different. The first one, published in 1948, was made from the abridged German version by Franz Kuhn. The second one, published over 2012–2018 and still unfinished, is based on the Chinese Wanli edition and aims at introducing the famous Ming novel fully and faithfully.

L. Olivová Department of Chinese Studies—Center of Asian Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic e-mail: [email protected] O. Vicher (B) Department of Asian Studies, Palacký University, Olomouc, Czech Republic e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Qi and S. Tobias (eds.), Encountering China’s Past, New Frontiers in Translation Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0648-0_12

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Before introducing the two versions, we shall first outline the context of translating Chinese literature into Czech. Strictly speaking, a knowledge of written Chinese is the prerequisite for such an endeavor, but the possibility of translating by means of an already made translation into a more accessible foreign language than Chinese, has always presented itself and has been used. This was the case with the very first translation of a Chinese literary text into Czech, published in a literary journal in 1881, relatively late by comparison with some other European literary traditions. It was the prologue (ruhua 入話) of a huaben 話本 story, made from French by the well-known poet and author Julius Zeyer (1841–1901). It should be mentioned that, for a long period of time, huaben was the most widely translated Chinese literary genre in Europe, and thus Zeyer’s choice was not surprising. He was followed by Rudolf Dvoˇrák (1860–1920), a university professor of several Oriental languages, as they were called then, including classical Chinese. As would be expected from a sinologist at the time, Dvoˇrák did not select a fashionable genre for his translation, but turned instead to ancient classical texts, publishing a translation of Guofeng from the Book of Odes (1897) and a translation of Daode jing (1920). Zeyer and Dvoˇrák exemplify the double mode of translating Chinese literature into Czech, both indirect and direct, which still goes on, although its polarity is changing. Chinese Medieval poetry met, however, with the greatest popularity among Czech readers. It was introduced by the poet and literary scholar Bohumil Mathesius (1888– 1952) who produced a sequence of short anthologies under the title Odes of Ancient China, from 1939 onward. They are, in all probability, the most important Czech translations of Chinese literature ever, with their publications being an ongoing success and bringing an awareness and love of Tang poetry in particular, to the general readership. Although he did not know Chinese and worked with German and French translations, Mathesius was able to capture the poetical magic of the genre. Practically at the same time, the sinologist Jaroslav Pr˚ušek (1906–1980), having returned from his study trip to China and Japan, translated and published, during the years of World War II, several huaben stories as well as the Fusheng liuji 浮生六記, which was very well received. After the war, he established sinology as a discipline at Charles University, Prague. Apart from his academic undertakings, Pr˚ušek had his graduates translate Chinese literature, not only classical but also contemporary. This resulted in a systematic translation effort, which covered most works and genres. Although some of these translations seem a bit outdated today, it is above average for a ‘small’ language like Czech, with a chair of sinology established roughly in 1950, to have such an array of Chinese literature in translations created directly from the original. With regard to Jin Ping Mei, the novel in chapters (zhanghui xiaoshuo 章回小 說) is of special interest. Chinese claim that there are six great vernacular novels, and up to now, five of them have Czech renditions. It is of interest that this genre was not studied or translated all that much abroad in the 1950s and 1960s, and a major study, The Classic Chinese Novel by C. T. Hsia, did not appear until 1968. In Czechoslovakia, however, three of the ‘six great classical novels’ were translated from Chinese by Pr˚ušek’s students during his lifetime, and it can be assumed that this took place with his approval. Interestingly, each translator treated the original

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in a very specific way. The Czech version of the novel Xiyou ji 西游記, which was translated from Ruo Gu’s recent adaptation for children, was first published in 1961, meeting with considerable popularity.1 In addition, Shuihu zhuan 水滸 傳 was published in 1962 in an abbreviated version, consisting of twenty selected episodes only.2 The third translation of a vernacular novel was Rulin waishi 儒林 外史, translated by Oldˇrich Král and published in 1962.3 His approach was quite different from the other two, because he translated the complete novel. The translation of Rulin waishi was undeniably a demonstration of a new trend. As Pr˚ušek’s graduates matured and followed their respective academic paths in the 1960s, the requirements for translations were augmented. It became increasingly important to preserve the authenticity of the originals, by keeping to all the literary conventions, even if they were alien to European traditions. A notable example of this trend was the translation effort of Dana Kalvodová who, in addition to a collection of Yuan zaju 雜劇 (1960), translated the drama Taohua shan 桃花扇 by Kong Shangren (1968). The next ‘great Chinese novel’ to appear in Czech was Honglou meng 紅樓夢 (1986–1988), once again translated by Oldˇrich Král. What strengthened his decision to go on with Jin Ping Mei may have been the illustrated edition in reprint (Král – Iljašenko 2020, 361– 362). Obviously, only Sanguo yanyi 三國演義 is missing from the list,4 this being quite extraordinary for a country where sinology was a new field and sinologists rare. The prominent role of Oldˇrich Král, in introducing the vernacular novel, is also undeniable.

1.2 A Brief Survey of Translating Jin Ping Mei into Czech Having roughly established the context, we may now turn to the two Czech renditions of Jin Ping Mei. The first one, as has been stated, was based on Franz Kuhn’s version,5 and appeared in 1948. The translator was Sína Drahorádová-Lvová (1897–1976), an occasional journalist and author with an apparent interest in the exotic.6 Her legacy, including a vegetarian cookbook, not only represents the vogue of Orientalism before and during the War, but also demonstrates persistent interest and a growing solid understanding thereafter. The novels she wrote were set in the Far East, equatorial Africa, and Egypt. Her novel The Two Worlds7 relates the story of a Russian woman 1

Translated by Zdena Heˇrmanová-Novotná. Translated by Augustin Palát. There was also the Czech translation of Pearl S. Buck’s All Men Are Brothers published in 1937. 3 Král defended his dissertation on Rulin waishi in 1958 at Charles University, Prague. 4 A major part of the first chapter has been translated by Jakub Hrubý for a Czech anthology of Chinese literature (Olivová 2006, 187–193). 5 Mondfrau und Silbervase, Berlin 1939, translated by F. Kuhn (1884–1961). 6 The following is mainly based on Jandᡠcek (2008). 7 Drahorádová-Lvová, Sína. Dva svˇ ety. Praha: Rodina, 1930. Sharing a similar motif with East Wind: West Wind by Pearl S. Buck, however, Drahorádová-Lvová did not read English, and Buck’s novel also appeared as late as 1930. 2

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who marries into a traditional Chinese family. Having an excellent command of German, Drahorádová-Lvová drew on sources and translations in that language. She published folktales from around the world, with her Czech renditions of Japanese ˇ Ping Mei and Chinese literary works still being read, namely, the P˚uvabné ženy: Cin (ENG: Jin Ping Mei: Graceful Women, henceforth Graceful Women), a good deal shortened when compared to Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng’s original, but still providing some understanding of what the original oeuvre had been like, recounting the basic plot and reading quite smoothly. As in Franz Kuhn’s model, the titles of chapters, poems, storyteller’s locutions, etc., were avoided. Based on her correspondence, archived in Náprstek Museum, Prague, one learns that she personally knew Dr. Kuhn. In a letter dated 27 December 1960 (to Lumír Jisl, archaeologist), she described how Kuhn once found the second volume of JPM in a secondhand bookshop in Beijing, where he worked as an interpreter for the German delegation (1909–1912), and thus came to know the text. She also recalls that when working on JPM, she had to leave out the erotic scenes, and that it took several years before she found a publisher who would accept the manuscript as it was (Jandáˇcek 2008, 140).8 Drahorádová-Lvová was apparently respected for her knowledge of the ‘Orient’ within academic circles. At the beginning of the new millennium, two extracts from JPM were published separately, and ought to be mentioned so as to make this report complete. The fact that the rendition by Drahorádová-Lvová censored the erotic scenes perplexed the editor of a new textbook on Chinese anthropology, who intended to include some explicit episode from JPM in the chapter on Chinese erotic literature. He turned to David Uher, from Palacký University, who owned the 1991 Hong Kong edition of the novel, and who brilliantly translated the final episode from chapter 29, describing sexual intercourse in a bath (Malina and Kolmaš 2005, 262–263). Czech readers consequently received a valuable opportunity to compare two versions, one by Uher and one by Král,9 and evaluate them. Only one year later, the first part of chapter 12 also appeared in the Czech anthology of Chinese literature, this time translated by Oldˇrich Král, as an unrelated project (Olivová 2006, 218–227). Oldˇrich Král (1930–2018) was an accomplished sinologist with unique translating experience from classical Chinese, including Zhuang zi 莊子, Wenxin diaolong 文心 雕龍, or Tang chuanqi 傳奇, to name just a fraction of his breath-taking output. Král required that translations be faithful to the original and that they capture its stylistic flow. The latter is a rather abstract and subjective rule, and it can be observed that he actually constructed a unifying idiosyncratic Czech style for each work, which he believed appropriate for it. It should also be noted that as of the 1990s, his translations were published by Maxima publishing house, owned by his wife Eva, this being a shrewd way of bypassing the often limiting demands of standard publishing houses, one of them being the usage of pinyin instead of the Czech transliteration of Chinese names. As the name Maxima indicates, the publisher aimed at perfection. The books produced were mainly Král’s previous as well as new translations, 8 On the question of negotiating the style and content with the editor or publisher, see Qi (2016, 2018, 2021). 9 See Xiaoxiaosheng and Král (2014, 261–266).

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although in 1992, he had Graceful Women by Drahorádová-Lvová re-published, accompanied by explicit wood-block illustrations from the Chongzhen edition. As he confessed in an interview published in a Hong Kong journal, he was already planning his own translation of the complete novel at that time.10 The first of the anticipated ten volumes of Jin Ping Mei aneb Slivoˇn ve zlaté váze (henceforth JPMCZ) consequently appeared in 2012, with a new volume following each year, and with the seventh volume published in 2018, a few months after he had passed away.11 These two different approaches can be found side by side in many cultures. Although complete and faithful translations naturally earn primacy, abbreviated renditions, constructed via a third language, are often a means of necessity, and do promote foreign literatures, albeit in a distorted way. Inasmuch as we defend the priority of the first approach, we do not think that the second one should be dismissed and completely rejected. The chief justification for adapted translations lies in acceptance on the side of readers, while remakes may better suit those readers who are accustomed to, and limited by their own cultural conventions, and do not wish to encounter the literary work in its actual garb. Since the complete translation of Jin Ping Mei into Czech remained unfinished, Maxima publishing house, now represented by Král’s son Marek, approached Lucie Olivová. She hesitated at first and then invited her doctoral student Ondˇrej Vicher as a collaborator, who, by pure coincidence, is doing research on the specific differences between the Wanli and Chongzhen editions and the lexicology of JPM. We are thereby undertaking the task of translating the remaining thirty chapters in three volumes, expecting the eighth volume to be published in 2022 at the latest. In doing so, we face an additional challenge, how to deal with the text, which was already translated and published, a text characterized by the very specific style Král had intentionally used. We realized that the only way was to let it be. It would be futile and senseless to try to imitate the distinctive style of our predecessor. We consider our style to be more neutral, at least in the parts told by a narrator. What we retain are renditions of personal names and topoi, if they had been translated, renditions of official titles, etc. This is essential in order to maintain the unity of the novel. Over the course of translating, we are faced with two kinds of problems. First, the correct comprehension of the language and second, conveying cultural phenomena which are different or absent in the Czech language and culture. In the following text, we shall provide several examples of the two.

10

Artension International, February 1992. He was interviewed by Dr. Alison Hardie. Xiaoxiaosheng, Lanling and Oldˇrich Král. 2012–2018. Jin Ping Mei aneb Slivoˇn ve zlaté váze, 7 vols. Lásenice: Maxima.

11

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2 Part Two 2.1 Description of the Shared Translation Process As mentioned earlier, the first seventy chapters of the novel were completed by Oldˇrich Král and published between 2012 and 2018. Whereas Lucie Olivová has known Král since the 1990s, I called on him in 2018 when he was working on the translation of volume eight (chapters 71–80). We met in his office in Prague to discuss some issues concerning the translation of Honglou meng and Jin Ping Mei at the beginning of May that year, where we agreed to continue our discussions once he returned to the Czech Republic from his holiday in China. Unfortunately, this was our last meeting because shortly after his return home in June, he passed away at the age of 87. Little did I know at the time that precisely one and a half years later, we would take up where Oldˇrich Král left off and try to complete the translation. Initially, in January 2020, I had completed my Czech translation of the first chapter of the Chongzhen edition as part of my dissertation. My Ph.D. supervisor Lucie Olivová praised the translation, and at that moment, we became convinced that it was feasible to continue with Král’s unfinished translation together. From the beginning of our cooperation, we decided to divide our work into two halves. Lucie Olivová took chapter 71 and all the odd-numbered chapters onward, and I committed to translating all the even-numbered ones. We do not translate, however, two chapters simultaneously. Although we both read JPM earlier, when one of us is translating a chapter, the other also reads the same chapter’s original text to become completely familiar with its details in order to suggest corrections and improvements. As soon as one translator completes a chapter, the other proofreads it, paying close attention to stylistic shortcomings, grammar and translation errors, narrative discrepancies, and other issues. Only then does the proofreader switch back to a translator and commence the translation of his or her respective chapter. Apart from the commentary provided in the source text editions,12 we use extensively several JPM related dictionaries13 as reference material. In some cases (usually concerning the source text characters misprints), we find an explanation in the source text (ST) of the Chongzhen edition. Last but not least, we sometimes decide on the problematic parts consulting D. T. Roy’s complete English edition or Manukhin’s Russian edition, especially in cases when each of us proposes a different translation solution, and we need a third and unbiased party to decide. This joint translation strategy has many advantages. Apart from the mutual motivation this strategy generates for us, it also enables us to gain a familiarity with each other’s work and translation style. It allows us to become aware of and rectify the shortcomings mentioned above and provides an opportunity for consultation when dealing with various ‘cruces translatorum.’ 12

We work with the Taiwanese edition (Xiaoxiaosheng 1981) and the commentaries of Feng Qiyong 馮其庸, Bai Weiguo 白維國, and Bu Jian卜鍵 from the edition published in Changsha (Xiaoxiaosheng 1998). 13 E.g., Bai (1991), Wang (1988), Sun and Wei (1993), Zhang (1992), and Li (2016),

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We need to be mindful, however, of unifying our style. Our vocabulary and phraseology must correspond with the content of the previous seventy chapters in certain instances. We therefore often browse back and forth through the already published chapters to consult Král’s translation solutions. If we eventually agree that our new solution is better and more accurate than his, we are inclined to use our own. This process proves to be a time-consuming and exhausting task, which ultimately constitutes a far more significant challenge than if we had the freedom to decide upon the translation format from scratch.

2.2 Our Translation Approach and Priorities We believe that among non-native Chinese speakers, only the translator and researcher (a sinologist) can fully appreciate the literary, linguistic, and cultural values of JPM. This is simply because such a person has to deeply analyze various syntactic and lexical units to comprehend their true meaning, and subsequently translate them accordingly. This aspect in all probability rarely comes to the minds of readers or reviewers of the TT unfamiliar with the SL. Since we are academics, translators, and researchers of JPM, we aim at a thorough academic translation. It is difficult, because Chinese and Czech are quite distinct languages. Czech has a relatively loose word order that allows for many variants, as the syntactic constituents may often take almost any place within a given sentence. The syntactic system’s freedom is then compensated at the morphological level, where the given word’s inflection forms further indicate the syntactic relations. Inflection extensively affects and changes forms of nouns, pronouns, numerals, adjectives (declension), and verbs (conjugation). Another challenge is the cultural remoteness and incongruity. The eminent Czech literary and translation scholar Jiˇrí Levý (2011, 3) claimed: ‘A translation is like a woman; either it is beautiful, or it is faithful.’ Although this reads like a sexist image by contemporary standards, the underlying meaning deserves attention. We agree that it is difficult to achieve both accuracy and beauty, but we would still like our translation to not only be accurate and precise in terms of facts but also be a work of art.

2.3 Examples of Issues Encountered When Translating JPM to Czech Since our recent translating experience pertains to chapters 71–80, most of the examples of translating issues introduced in this paper will come from these chapters. We encountered dozens of translation issues and challenges in each chapter we translated and proofread thus far. Due to the limited extent of our contribution, we will only

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introduce a limited selection of the most interesting examples that stem from the cultural differences and some of the Czech language’s specifics.

2.3.1

Issues Caused by the T-V Distinction Phenomenon

One specific aspect of the Czech language is the wide usage of so-called T-V distinction (the ‘youing and thouing’) in pronouns and possessive adjectives. This method of honorification is innate not only to Czech but also to dozens of other languages (French, German, and many Slavic languages). It conveys the various intensities of politeness, familiarity, and courtesy, expressing age differences, or even expressing disdain directed from the speaker toward the addressee. In Czech, the familiar ‘ty’ (thou) and polite ‘vy’ (you)14 are used in quite a similar way as the ni 你, and nin 您 in Chinese. The T-V distinction is in Czech called ‘tykání’ (thouing) and ‘vykání’ (youing), and it is a way to express one’s familiarity and hierarchy to others. There are, however, several other ways to do so, for example, by using different honorific nouns and adjectives, style or tone. Our first example concerns the relationship between Ximen Qing and the closest of his cronies within the Brotherhood of Ten, Ying Bojue. As is well-known to researchers of the novel, Ying Bojue is first mentioned in the Wanli edition only in chapter 10, when the establishment of the Brotherhood of Ten is described, whereas, in the Chongzhen Edition, this same scene (with slight modifications) takes place in the first chapter. The first direct conversation between Ximen Qing and Ying Bojue thus occurs in chapter 11, where Ximen Qing asks Hua Zixu about the identity of the singer (Li Guijie) he saw at a banquet held in his house, and Ying Bojue immediately interjects, saying: ST: CZ: ENG:

大官人多忘事, 就不認的了。 ‘Ale vaše ctihodnosti, jak m˚užete být tak zapomnˇetlivý, že jste je nepoznal?’ (Xiaoxiaosheng and Král 2013, 60) ‘You are certainly becoming rather forgetful not to recognize her, sir’ (Xiaoxiaosheng and Roy 1993, 393).

In Král’s translation, the Czech honorific ‘vaše ctihodnosti’ (your Honor) is used for 大官人 to express Bojue’s respectful attitude toward Ximen Qing and the forms of the verbs in this sentence correspond to the ‘youing’ form. Bojue’s elaboration of Guijie’s identity and background then stretches for several sentences, and Ximen Qing consequently laughs and answers that he has not seen her (Guijie) for six years and that she has grown quite a bit over that time: 六年不見, 就出落得成了人兒了!In the Czech translation, Král, in order to make the conversation sound more natural, added a sentence, which does not appear in the original. In this sentence, Ximen Qing addresses Ying Bojue by ‘youing’: ‘To jistˇe sám uznáte’ (ibid.). ENG: ‘You must certainly admit that yourself’ (my translation). If Ximen Qing was ‘thouing’ 14

Which, just like in English, conforms to the second person singular and the plural grammatical number.

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Bojue at this point and thus explicitly demonstrating his social superiority, instead of the abovementioned verb ‘uznáte’ (Czech for ‘admit’), he would have to use its informal variant ‘uznáš.’ Král decided, however, for the former and therefore firmly established the ‘youing’ between Ximen Qing and Ying Bojue, which set their mutual relationship on par right from the beginning of the novel. We decided to honor this setting in the eighth volume. The mutual ‘youing’ is set up between Ximen Qing and all the members of the Brotherhood of Ten even though they are considered his closest friends, and the ‘thouing’ would be appropriate as well. Ximen Qing is generally ‘youing’ to all his superiors and people he holds in high esteem. Král established mutual ‘youing’ with Ximen Qing among people outside the household, e.g., scholars such as licentiate Wen, business managers, and even women from licensed quarters. The same applies to most of his relatives; however, he is ‘thouing’ toward Chen Jingji, who, of course, as a person of lower hierarchical status in the family, must show respect to him by constant ‘youing.’ Ximen Qing is also ‘youing’ all his wives in everyday situations, especially in the presence of other women, relatives or guests. An exception, in this case, is the intimate moments when the familiar ‘thouing’ takes over. The example below from chapter 72 is part of the infamous scene,15 where Ximen Qing needs to urinate, and Jinlian urges him not to get out of bed and says: ST: CZ: ENG:

我的親親, 你有多少尿, 溺在奴口里。 ‘Miláˇcku, m˚užeš pˇrece všechnu tu moˇc naˇcu˚ rat do mé otrocké pusinky’ (my translation). ‘My darling, no matter how much urine you may have, go ahead and piss it into my mouth.’ (Xiaoxiaosheng and Roy 2011, 358).

Ximen Qing is then ‘thouing’ his sweetheart as he says: ST: CZ: ENG:

乖乖兒, 誰似你這般疼我! ‘Zlatíˇcko, nikdo jiný mˇe nemiluje tak jako ty!’ (my translation) ‘My precious child, no one else cares for me as much as you do’ (Xiaoxiaosheng and Roy 2011, 358)

According to Plaks (1987, 145), this ‘especially distasteful act is depicted as a deliberate attempt by Chin-lien to break down Hsi-men’s self-control in order to extract favors from him.’ It is a well-known fact that women in JPM and Pan Jinlian in particular use sex as a means to gain gifts, favors, clothing, social advancement, and other benefits (Dauncey 1999, 291; McMahon 2019, 4). Even though Jinlian is familiarly ‘thouing’ Ximen Qing in our translation, the submissive tone is already established by the described act itself. If Jinlian would be ostentatiously ‘youing’ Ximen Qing in this same sentence, however, it would further emphasize her submissiveness, as it would sound just like when a slave degrades him or herself in front 15

This scene was previously discussed by several JPM scholars, sinologists, and sexologists, e.g., see Ding (2002, 218–219), Plaks (1986, 29; 1987, 145), Van Gulik (2003, 167), Ruan and Matsumura (1991, 96), and Liu (2015, 495).

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of a lord. This applies especially to the nearly similar scene from chapter 75, where Ximen Qing performs the same ‘urophilic’ sexual act with the wet nurse Zhang Ruyi. We decided that, from his dominant position, Ximen Qing would be ‘thouing’ to her, while she is ‘youing’ to him the entire time. She is not, of course, his legitimate wife, or his concubine, but a mere servant or slave at best. The line between choosing the ‘youing’ and ‘thouing’ in Czech is very thin and often controversial. In addition, apart from the intimate moments between lovers, which do not necessarily apply exclusively to Ximen Qing’s person (e.g., Jinlian and Chen Jingji), the family’s core members are always ‘thouing’ servants, maids, slaves, and messengers or page boys from other households. Lower-ranking persons, such as servants, are then in Czech solely ‘thouing’ each other and toward their masters always use ‘youing’ often associated with other honorific expressions.

2.3.2

Proper Nouns and Related Orthographical Issues

There are several types of issues that occur when translating proper nouns from JPM into Czech. In this case, the fundamental question is what type of translating solution is best to apply, whether a translation or transliteration? The earliest abridged Czech version of JPM (Graceful Women) used both solutions extensively, but that was most likely due to the influence of Franz Kuhn’s German edition, the source text for this Czech edition. The names of the characters were mainly transliterated using an unofficial transcription method. Since Král’s seventy chapters were published in his own publishing house, he was free to choose pinyin as the transliteration method for proper nouns. There was also a possibility to use the standard Czech transcription for Chinese created by the renowned Czech sinologist Oldˇrich Švarný in 1951 (see Švarný 1967; Švarný and Uher 2001), and which is often used in Czech translations of Chinese literature. Král had used the Czech transcription, for example, in the 1980s when translating Honglou meng. If a native Czech speaker reads the Chinese word transcribed with this transcription, the pronunciation closely matches the Chinese sound, and this transcription thus constitutes an ideal solution for Czech speakers unfamiliar with Chinese phonetics or pinyin. For his translation of JPM, however, Král decided to use pinyin exclusively, and not translate the meaning of personal names, as he did in Honglou meng in the case of some female characters. This seemed the ideal solution, because the names are too numerous and might not be intelligible for the reader: they could get mixed up easily. In JPM, however, in light of the hundreds of names of characters and many more hundreds of references to various historical personages, it has proven much more convenient to work directly with pinyin. The names of many characters in the novel are elaborated so ingeniously that they indicate their individuality or characteristics (Luo 2012, 67; Roy 1990, 200). The artfulness these names convey, in the source language (SL), is often impossible or extremely difficult to render sufficiently in the target language (TL). It should be noted, however, that wherever possible, in addition to the rather effortless transliteration of the given name to pinyin, Král also mentioned its translation variant either directly in the text or a

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Table 1 Romanisation and translation of character names JPMCZ

Graceful Women

Standard Czech transcription for Chinese

Pinyin

Translation variant

Unofficial transcription

Translation variant

Ximen Qing

N/A Zlatý lotos (ENG Golden Lotus)

Hsi Men ˇ Liän Pan Cin

N/A

Pan Jinlian

Wu Yueniang

Paní Luna (ENG Moon Lady)

N/A

Paní Luna (ENG Moon Lady)

Wu Jüe-niang

Sun Xue’e

N/A

Sun Hsüe O

N/A

Li Jiao’er

N/A

Li Kiao’rl

N/A

Sun Süe-e ˇ Li Tiao-er

Li Ping’er

Váziˇcka (ENG Little Vase)

Ping

Paní Váza (ENG Lady Vase)

Li Pching-er

Guan’ge

N/A

Kvan Ko’rl

N/A

Kuan-ge

Paní Lotos (ENG Lady Lotus)

ˇ Si-men Cching ˇ Pchan Tin-lien

footnote, especially in the case of honorific names, nicknames, or personal names bearing a specific symbolism or hidden pun. In addition, there is the list of characters at the beginning of each volume, similar to Roy’s. We continue with this trend in the eighth volume. When Qi Lintao (2018, 35) raised the question of whether there are any particularities regarding the proper nouns that make it a worthy topic for academic exploration,16 several examples from our translation process consequently came to mind which support his claim. Table 1 listed below shows a preliminary comparison of transcriptions in pinyin and semantic translations (used in JPMCZ) and the unofficial transcription of names together with the translation variant (used in Graceful Women). The last column shows the potential transliterated form in standard Czech transcription.17 a.

Ximen Qing

The names of the characters themselves would not pose such a translatological issue, especially when Král had established them at the beginning of the translation. There is not a single major character in the whole novel, however, that goes by a single name. Such is the case of Ximen Qing, whose zi 字or ‘style name’ Siquan 四泉 (CZ: ˇ ri prameny,’ ENG: ‘Four Springs’)—first mentioned in chapter 36—is seldom ‘Ctyˇ used throughout the novel. There are 27 occurrences of this style name throughout the novel, first in chapter 37, then several random ones between chapters 49 and 68. In the eighth volume, between chapter 70, where ‘we see the expanding glory of his sexual and political powers’ (Plaks 1987, 126) and chapter 79, when Ximen 16

And subsequently answered this question positively by listing sufficient evidence in the following paragraph. 17 For similar tables comparing proper nouns of other language editions, see Brömmelhörster (1990, 29–31) and Qi (2018, 142–143).

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Qing dies, there are altogether 15 single instances where someone addressed him as Siquan. This is, of course, related to his recent advancement in rank and the frequent banquets and celebrations held in his house for a number of distinguished guests throughout the eighth volume. Since we are convinced that our readers would have difficulty remembering the first reference to Ximen Qing’s style name from chapter 37, we agreed to remind them in a footnote at the first occurrence of the eighth volume in chapter 70. b.

Pan Jinlian

Pan Jinlian’s first name Jinlian 金蓮 carries a deep symbolism and is sometimes semantically translated as the ‘Golden Lotus,’ which is generally well-known to JPM scholars. The Chinese word jinlian 金蓮 is a synonym for ‘bound feet,’ an object of male sexual desire in ancient China. According to Robert van Gulik (2003, 216), it is irrefutable that during the Song dynasty, foot-binding was ‘already a widely-spread and well-established custom.’ As Luo Junjie (Luo 2012, 67) points out, the name itself hints at its bearer’s licentiousness, one of Jinlian’s most essential characteristics. Jinlian is also well aware of using her tiny feet to her advantage to raise her social status (Wang 1999, 20; Plaks 1987, 101). This is how the first reference to Jinlian in the novel (first chapter) is translated into Czech: Zaˇcali jí záhy vázat chodidla a podle tˇech drobných nožiˇcek si jí zvykli rˇíkat Jinlian, což neznamená nic jiného než Zlatý lotos. (Xiaoxiaosheng and Král 2012, 60) ENG: ‘They soon began to bind her feet and because of those tiny feet, they called her Jinlian, which means nothing else than Golden Lotus’ (my translation).

Throughout the rest of the novel, Král predominantly uses the transliterated name in pinyin—Jinlian, even though it would also be possible to address her as ‘Paní lotos’ (ENG: ‘Lady Lotus’), as she was addressed in Graceful Women. The name of Pan Jinlian is in JPMCZ transcribed to pinyin in full—Pan Jinlian—or in abbreviated form—Jinlian—in most cases.18 In other cases, she is mainly referred to by the title of her position in the family, the ‘Fifth Lady’ (Wu Niang 五娘, or ‘Pátá paní’ in Czech). Both Král and we adhere to the ST closely and rarely interchange the transcribed variant of the name with her family title. That means we try to refrain from using the transcribed form Pan Jinlian in the target text (TT) when 五娘 is used in the ST and vice versa. In addition, the possible semantic translation variant of the name, ‘Zlatý lotos’ (ENG: ‘Golden Lotus’), is not used in JPMCZ, except in the scene mentioned above in which her character is introduced in the novel for the first time. In Graceful Women, she is referred to both by the transcription (see again Table 1) and the translation variant interchangeably, and although we have not performed any detailed textual analysis in this regard, just from the brief glimpse through the pages of the book, the translation variant undoubtedly predominates. Various ways of addressing Pan Jinlian prove to be an abundant source of examples of translation issues. When translating the eighth volume of the JPMCZ, we encountered another problem related to her nickname. In several scenes throughout 18

Usually where the full name 潘金蓮 or abbreviated 金蓮 appears in the ST.

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the novel, Pan Jinlian is addressed by Liujie 六姐, CZ: ‘Šestá sestra,’ (ENG: ‘Sixth Sister’ or ‘Sister Six’),19 a nickname she was initially granted in the Zhang family, where she lived before being married off to Wu Da. Even later, when she entered Ximen Qing’s household as his fifth wife, the nickname ‘Sister Six’ stuck with her. Sometimes in the ST, the reference is extended to Pan Liujie 潘六姐, ‘Sixth Sister Pan.’ When referred to as the Fifth Lady, or Sixth Sister Pan, it is immediately apparent that it is none other than Pan Jinlian. When referred to as the Sixth Sister, however, it might become somewhat confusing when juxtaposed with the Sixth Lady, the official title of the long-deceased Li Ping’er.20 This applies to several chapters of the eighth volume, where both references often appear one after another.21 The nickname Sixth Sister is used sporadically throughout the novel, and the last appearance in the seventh volume is in chapter 67. To prevent further confusion, we therefore also remind our readers and explain the issue in a footnote at the first occurrence of the eighth volume in chapter 72. We believe that this is an elegant solution that will also allow us to remain faithful to ST’s content. c.

Licentiate Wen

It is generally known that manzi 蠻子 is used as a derogatory term for ‘southerners’ (Bai 1991, 344; Sun and Wei 1993, 539). This word is often used in the novel as a swear word directed at merchants from the south of China, servants and slaves, and one person, particularly the infamous licentiate Wen. It also often carries a homosexual connotation or is directly used as a synonym for homosexuality. There is a male-to-male sexual scene between Ximen Qing and his page boy Shutong depicted in chapter 34. Another servant Ping’an is spying on the two of them and reports everything to Pan Jinlian, who, utterly infuriated, uses the expression man nucai 蠻奴才, a ‘southern slave,’ to scold the poor Shutong. The constituent 蠻 in this expression therefore carries a double connotation as the young Shutong is indeed a native of Suzhou in southern China (蠻 for ‘southerner’) and simultaneously Ximen Qing’s catamite—a homosexual lover (蠻 for ‘homosexual’). Shutong is a shining example of an opportunistic circumstance-based bisexual, as he is, according to Bret Hinsch (1992, 135), ‘willing to pander to Ximen Qing for gain, and enjoying sex with women for pleasure.’22 Licentiate Wen 溫秀才 is a long-established side character in the novel. He is addressed in the novel twice as Wen Manzi 溫蠻子 (ENG: ‘Wen, the Southern barbarian’) by Pan Jinlian, in chapters 73 and 76 and once in a shortened form as Manzi 蠻子 by Meng Yulou in chapter 76. Jinlian in chapter 73 may presume her suspicion of his homosexual tendency, which is proved later in chapter 76 by the 19

It occurs in the ST 82 times in total, of that 13 times in the eighth volume (throughout chapters 72– 76 and in chapter 79). 20 Li Ping’er’s apartment and private chambers are often visited in the eighth volume by Ximen Qing, who comes there not only to mourn, but also to enjoy himself with wet nurse Ruyi. 21 E.g., in chapter 76, during the conversation with Meng Yulou, Pan Jinlian is first addressed as Sixth Sister and a few sentences later Yulou speaks about Li Ping’er and refers to her as Sixth Lady. 22 In this regard, there is a striking resemblance of Shutong with the male servant Satchel from Li Yu’s Rouputuan 肉鋪團 (The Carnal Prayer Mat), as is depicted in chapter eight of the novel.

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infamous incident when he rapes the page boy Huatong. The Chinese word wen 溫 is translated into Czech with the word ‘teplý,’ a polysemic expression that not only means ‘warm,’ but also carries the implicit meaning of ‘gay’ or ‘homosexual.’ On these grounds, it is possible to translate the expression 溫蠻子 to Czech as the verbatim ‘Teplý barbar’ (ENG: ‘Warm barbarian’), or as pejorative ‘Jižanský teplouš’ (ENG: ‘Southern faggot’). Licentiate Wen, immediately after his shameful act in chapter 76, loses the patronage and respect of Ximen Qing. In reaction to this, Dai’an makes a pun of his personal name Wen Bigu 溫必古 with the near-homophonic Wen Pigu 溫屁股, ‘warm buttocks,’ in order to point out his fondness for anal sex with young page boys such as Huatong. As Plaks (1987, 143) points out, ‘the author himself rarely misses an opportunity to take a poke at these proclivities by assigning punning names to figures such as Wen Pi-ku.’ ST: ENG:

我的哥哥, 溫師父叫你, 仔細他有名的溫屁股, 一日沒屁股也成不的! ‘“Brother”, said Tai-an, “if Master Wen is calling for you, you’d better be on your guard. His name puns with the words ‘warm buttocks’, and he can hardly last a day without enjoying a pair of warm buttocks...”’ (Xiaoxiaosheng and Roy 2011, 537).

In our Czech translation of the above-cited Dai’an’s words, we prioritized the conversion of meaning and therefore translated the pun to the letter as ‘Teplý zadek’ (ENG: ‘Warm buttocks’), similarly to what Roy did in his English translation.23 We felt, however, that we needed to elaborate more so that the Czech reader would not miss the meaning of the pun. This time, instead of an explanation in a footnote, we agreed to extend the TT. The personal name of licentiate Wen in pinyin (Wen Bigu), which is not part of the ST, is therefore included in the translation to demonstrate the homophony with Wen Pigu, ‘The Warm Buttocks.’ In addition, we added another slightly more figurative alternative, ‘Zadkomil Wen’ (ENG: ‘Wen the Buttocks-lover’), which not only underlines the hidden meaning of the pun but that the entire compound-clause sounds more natural in Czech: CZ:

ENG:

23

‘“Bratˇríˇcku, jestli si tˇe žádá licenciát Wen, tak se mˇej na pozoru”, varoval jej Dai’an, “jeho jméno Wen Bigu zní podobnˇe jako Wen Pigu – Teplý zadek, a tenhleten Zadkomil Wen, je nechvalnˇe znám tím, že nevydrží jediný den bez toho, aniž by si nˇejaký ten pˇekný teplý zadeˇcek nedopˇrál...”’ (my translation). ‘“My dear brother, if licenciate Wen desires you, you’d better be on your guard,” Dai’an warned him, “his name Wen Bigu sounds just like Wen Pigu – Warm buttocks, and this Wen the Buttocks-lover is notorious for not being

This obvious wordplay (which is pointed out directly in the novel by Dai’an) has been further analyzed by other JPM researchers as well: see Brömmelhörster (1990, 83–84) for an overview of translation solutions of this wordplay in other editions, i.e., Kibat’s, Lévy’s, Egerton’s, and Kuhn’s; further see Hu (2014, 90) for analysis of the view on homosexuality in connection with this episode.

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able to last a single day without enjoying a pair of nice warm buttocks...”’ (my translation). iv.

Laiyou and Laijue

There are several quite important male servants in the Ximen Qing’s household whose name is composed by the character 來, e.g., Lai’an, Laibao, Laiwang, Laixing, and Laizhao. While proofreading chapter 77 (translated by Lucie Olivová), I noticed another possible case of name symbolism. Based on my hypothesis, the name pun or name symbolism intentionally devised by the author occurs at the point when the new servant Laiyou 來友, lit. ‘Coming Friend’ is recommended to the family by Ying Bao, the son of Ying Bojue, and introduced to Ximen Qing. As soon as Laiyou pledges his loyalty to Ximen Qing, his name is changed to Laijue 来爵. With regard to other frequent examples of how the author of JPM used the names of characters to create various puns, I believe that the name could mean ‘Coming (to the family) thanks to Ying Bojue (and his son Ying Bao).’24 Although this is not essential information that would affect the narrative of the novel, we nevertheless decided we should not deprive our readers of it, and we therefore explained this in a footnote. e.

Two Yingchuns

There are more than one thousand character names in the novel (Qi 2018, 35). Ximen Qing, with his six wives, their relatives, more than twenty servants, and their families, dozens of friends, and acquaintances (Hou and Wang 1986, 3–5), together form a large group of recurring characters. Due to the frequent homophony of Chinese syllables and the limitation of possible naming combinations, it is not at all surprising that some of the minor characters in the novel have apparently matching names, at least when converted to Latinized transcription. Such is the case with two different servants called Antong, both recorded in the ST with the characters 安童,25 two different girls named Jin’er (the ‘Goldie’ 金兒 and the ‘Little brocade’ 錦兒) and three servants named Laiding 來定. The case of two Yingchuns is a slightly different matter, however, that requires a different translatological approach. Yingchun 迎春, the maidservant of the late Sixth Lady Li Ping’er is introduced first in the novel in chapter 13 and makes a total of 249 appearances over the entire course of the novel. Some of her notable scenes occur in the eighth volume, e.g., in chapter 72, where she, supported by the wet nurse Ruyi, quarrels over a laundry bat with Chunmei. Her name then appears in almost every chapter, including the 19 references in chapter 75, and therefore the majority of readers become familiarized with the name and her position by chapter 77. Although her name is mentioned only twice in chapter 77, another person with a matching name appears in its latter part. 24

This has not yet been highlighted by any JPM scholar as far as we know. There is no comment on this matter from Zhang Zhupo in any of his essays, nor any comments in the newly published Chinese Wanli edition (see Xiaoxiaosheng 1998, 2336), nor in Roy’s English translation (see Xiaoxiaosheng and Roy 2011, 566). 25 Incidentally, this two-character collocation traditionally carries the meaning ‘a boy servant.’

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Readers of the ST would probably miss this issue or completely disregard it since the homophonous name is written in different characters, i.e., 應春. In addition, this other Yingchun is male, he is a disciple of abbot Wu, and delivers some New Year’s gifts and customary memorials to Ximen Qing’s household. Since there is a clear context provided to differentiate between the disciple and the maidservant, this could be considered a minor issue not even worth making a fuss about. Nevertheless, some of our readers might become confused or curious about the name match. We believe the best solution to make a clear distinction between the two in pinyin is to transliterate the male disciple as Ying Chun, where ‘Ying’ is the family name (notably the same as Ying Bojue’s) and ‘Chun’ the personal name. If we then juxtapose the two—Yingchun and Ying Chun—it suddenly makes sense since most females and servants (both male and female) in the novel bear two character names that are transcribed as disyllabic links. The following statement by Qi Lintao also supports this claim (2018, 146): ‘The absence of the family name is typically an indication of slavery status for both men and women, as is suggested by the cases of Qintong and Chunmei, the latter of whom, in spite of her more prestigious position in Ximen’s house, simply has her family name missing because of her inferior identity of being a maidservant.’ Many important male characters in the novel (except for the main protagonists) have a single-character family name and a single-character personal name transcribed separately, e.g., Wu Song, Wu Kai, An Chen, Cai Jing, Chen Hong, Qiao Hong and above all—Ying Bao 應包—an example of identical transcription applicable to Ying Chun. The sentence referencing Ying Chun: 良久, 只見吳道官徒弟應春, is translated into Czech as follows: CZ:

ˇ bˇežel a kdo se nezjevil než taoista Ying Chun, uˇcedník mistra Wu’ ‘Cas (translated by Lucie Olivová).

Just out of curiosity, I inspected this passage both in the English and Russian editions: ENG: RU:

‘Sometime later, who should appear but Abbot Wu’s disciple Ying-ch’un’ (Xiaoxiaosheng and Roy 2011, 568). ‘Hemnogo pogod ppibyl Inqyn, poclyxnik nactotel U’ (Xiaoxiaosheng and Manukhin 2016, 409).

In both language versions, the transliteration of the male disciple’s name is exactly the same as the maidservants,26 which means that both D. T. Roy and V. S. Manukhin and A. I. Kobzev either did not consider this an issue at all or did not notice this name match. We could claim the same about Oldˇrich Král, since the only other appearance of the male character Ying Chun 應春 in the entire novel occurs in chapter 39, where Král transcribed the name as Yingchun: 26

The English version uses the Wade-Giles transcription system and the Russian version the Palladius transcription system. For further comparison, see p. 567 of the English version for a sentence referring to the maidservant Yingchun: ‘Hsi-men Ch’ing then ordered Ying-ch’un to bring him something to eat.’, or the list of characters p. lxiv. See also the corresponding sentence in the Russian version on p. 408: ‘On velel Inqyn nakpyt ctol.,’ or the list of characters p. 518.

On Translating Jin Ping Mei into Czech

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是他第二個徒弟應春跟了禮來。 ‘Ten, co pˇrišel, to je jeho druhý uˇcedník, nˇejaký Yingchun, ten pˇrišel s tˇemi dárky’ (Xiaoxiaosheng and Král 2015, 292). ‘The one who came was his second apprentice, certain Yingchun, he came with the presents’ (my verbatim translation).

According to Qi Lintao (2018, 36), personal names in JPM are semiotic artifacts and carry a linguistic, ethnic, iconic, societal, historical, and even religious value. We sincerely hope that the examples mentioned above revealed some of these features and will be beneficial to the JPM research community.

2.3.3

Searching for the Appropriate Equivalent in Czech

As mentioned above, we aim at translation which is both accurate and poetical. In many cases, however, we have to prioritize artistic beauty at the expense of accuracy and vice versa. The absence of an appropriate Czech equivalent for a number of specific Chinese terms constitutes a crucial challenge that needs to be dealt with. These include a vast number of areas, such as food and drink, clothing, architecture, furniture, measure units, religion, customs and festivities, official titles, erotica, and sex, and many more as well as various formulaic expressions, metaphors, idioms, proverbs, stock phrases,27 etc. Here below, we list a few examples of such terms and elaborate on their possible translation solutions. a.

Historical measure units

The units of measurement in premodern China constitute a complicated translatological issue since they varied greatly among each other in different historical eras and are entirely different from the present International System of Units (SI) which was adopted in modern China and is used in most Western countries including the Czech Republic. One example is the Chinese mile—shili 市里 (literally the ‘city mile’ or ‘urban mile’), often abbreviated to li 里, which generally ranged around 0.5 km. Next is the Chinese yard zhang 丈, which was equal to 3.3 m, and one-tenth of zhang was chi 尺, the Chinese foot, equal to 0.3 m or cun 寸, the Chinese inch equal to 3 cm. Although there were preexisting equivalents to these ancient units in Czech, some of the expressions may be considered obsolete and unclear to today’s Czechs.28 For the Chinese mile—li, the transliteration solution was used in JPMCZ, and the term was subsequently explained in the glossary. Although the word ‘míle’ for English ‘mile’ exists in Czech, it usually refers to the 1.6 km of the English mile or the 1.85 km of the naval mile, and it is not commonly used. We believe that keeping the transliterated variant li is the only possible solution. There are Czech variants of equal length Or the ‘storytellers stock phrases,’ the so-called taoyu 套語 such as zhengshi 正是, danjian 但 見, huashuo 話說, buzaihuaxia 不在話下, and many more (see Børdahl 2016, 35–38). 28 Even if they would be familiar with the term, they in all probability would not know exactly what measure or size it represented and thus we would need to add another explanation to transfer the old unit into the currently used one. 27

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for the smaller units—‘stopa’ (ENG: ‘foot’) for chi, and ‘palec’ (ENG: ‘inch’) for cun. The only dilemma is presented by the solution for zhang. The simplest solution would be to transliterate the term as in the case of li and provide an explanation in a glossary. In old Czech, however, there was a unit equal to the length of six feet called ‘sáh,’ ENG: ‘fathom.’ Since the Chinese zhang is approximately double the length of a fathom, a conversion solution may be possible in this case where ‘10 zhang’ could be rendered into Czech as ‘20 sáh˚u’ (ENG: ‘20 fathoms’). Traditional Chinese measure words for weight, extensively used in JPM, include liang 兩 ounce or tael which equals 50 g, qian 钱, one-tenth of a tael, jin 斤, a catty, or half a kilogram and many more. These units of weight also represent a problematic translation dilemma. Out of the three units listed above, Král only used a substitute term for liang, which has an adequate counterpart in the old European unit of weight called ‘lot.’ This word was also used in the past in the Czech Lands, and its value is closest to the Chinese liang. The other two were, for lack of an appropriate counterpart, transliterated in JPMCZ.29 Another Chinese unit of weight, a dan 石, a unit of grain equal to 100 L, could be calqued using the Czech word ‘kámen’ (ENG: ‘stone’). More accurate and culturally inherent variants are available, such as the measure word ‘mˇeˇrice,’ equal to 70 L and its near synonyms ‘korec,’ equal to 93 L, and ‘ˇcber’ or ‘džber,’ which ranges between 53 and 93 L according to the region (Chvojka and Skála 1982). In traditional Chinese literary works translated into Czech, the word ‘mˇeˇrice’ appears most frequently. The traditional Chinese time measuring system and calendar system used in JPM varies drastically from Western conventions. The time system employed, for example, the Twelve Earthly Branches 十二支 which represented each double hour of the day, and another system for nighttime, the geng 更, ‘night watch’ system was used simultaneously. The length of each geng also varied depending on the given season (Soma et al. 2004, 887–889). Our translation solution for geng is simple: we use the Czech equivalent ‘noˇcní hlídka’ (ENG: ‘night watch’), and then define the time frame in a footnote. For example, sangeng 三更 is translated as ‘v cˇ ase tˇretí noˇcní hlídky’ (ENG: ‘during the third (night) watch’) and the footnote explains that it is the time interval between 23:00 and 01:00. We decided to provide a separate commentary with a conversion table for units of measurement and for the time intervals of night and day; something Král did not adopt in the previous volumes. b.

Culture related issues

‘The creativity of the translator is restricted to the sphere of language; he can enrich his own culture by domesticating exoticisms as well as by creating neologisms’ (Levý 2011, 80). These exoticisms may be various objects of daily use, food, and drink, customs, matters of etiquette, architectural elements, in general objects, things, matters, and activities indigenous to traditional Chinese culture, which often lack an equivalent in the TL and therefore have to be paraphrased. One of the cases frequently appearing in the novel is the case of ketou 磕頭, a humble salute which consists of 29

Technically, it would be possible to convert jin into kilograms, but the expression ‘kilogram’ would then look inappropriate in a novel set in ancient China.

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prostrating oneself and beating one’s forehead to the ground, or simply a ‘kowtow’—a long-established term in English, thanks to the British-Chinese economic and cultural exchange since the late seventeenth century. This type of salute was not common in the Czech Lands and was in all probability never practiced in Czech history. The closest term Czech has for such obeisance bears the meaning of ‘to bow’ or ‘to make a curtsy,’ which is far from accurate. We tend to deal with this lack of context by circumlocution, simply using the collocation: ‘pobít cˇ elem o zem’ (ENG: ‘to hit (or beat) one’s forehead on the ground’). In Gracious Women, the transliterated variant ‘kotau’ was used, usually in phrases such as ‘he performed a kotau.’ Another type of traditional Chinese salutation, the clasping of hands or the baoquan 抱拳 is again something entirely unknown for the Czech cultural context and, just as in English, we have to compensate for the lack of terminology by paraphrasing it accordingly, e.g., ‘sepjal dlanˇe v pozdrav’ (ENG: ‘he clasped his hands in greeting’). Král originally transliterated certain words, like the heatable brick bed kang 炕, and we tend to honor that solution. This object appears in chapter four for the first time, where Král translated the term into Czech with the word ‘l˚užko’ (ENG: ‘bed’) (Xiaoxiaosheng and Král 2012, 148). During the second occurrence of kang in chapter 14 in the sentence 晚夕同丫頭一炕, the term is completely omitted in Czech when Král translates: ‘V noci spí se služkami’ (ENG: ‘At night, he sleeps with maidservants’) (Xiaoxiaosheng and Král 2013, 164). It is not until the third occurrence again in chapter 14 when the transliterated word kang is finally used in Czech for the first time out of more than 200 total occurrences in the novel (ibid., 170). It is important to note that this remote cultural object is not explained anywhere in a footnote, endnote, or glossary of the second volume or any other volumes translated by Král. Whether the Czech reader understood the meaning of kang correctly from the context and frequent repetition is therefore unclear, and the extent of the misconception of the meaning of this term cannot be ruled out. Since the word kang is, compared to the rest of the novel, used the most times in the eighth volume (a total of 61 times), we decided to finally provide a sufficient explanation in the glossary. The case of the government office, the yamen 衙門, which appears in the entire novel around 200 times, is similar. Since Ximen Qing raises in rank to the position of full judicial commissioner in chapter 70, he then frequents the district yamen on many occasions during the last ten chapters before his passing in chapter 79. Instead of the standard transliterated form in pinyin, yamen, Král settles this term’s first appearance30 with a type of transliterated hybrid form—‘jámen.’31 The meaning is then explained in the glossary of the first volume (Xiaoxiaosheng and Král 2012, 331). This hybrid form, neither pinyin, nor a standard Czech transcription, almost looks like a type of phonetical loanword, resembling Czechified variants of long-inveterate In the ST, the term is not written with the characters 衙門, but with 縣門 xianmen, ‘the district yamen,’ which is considered a more specific synonym of the former. 31 Coincidentally, the form written pinyin transcription, i.e., yámen uses the acute accent sign on the letter ‘a’, i.e., ‘á,’ for the purpose of marking the Chinese raising or second tone. The Czech alphabet also uses this a-acute sign to elongate the pronunciation of the vowel to /a /. 30

 

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toponyms such as Pekin or Peking for Beijing 北京, Šanghaj for Shanghai, 上海 and other nouns like ‘ˇcaj’ for cha 茶 (tea), ‘ženšen’ for renshen 人參 (ginseng), ‘taiˇci’ for taijiquan 太極拳 (taiji shadow boxing), ‘jin a jang’ for yin and yang 陰陽, etc. For yamen (or jámen in Czech), another possible translation solution is the word ‘úˇrad,’ a ‘governmental office.’ Since Král prioritized the ‘jámen’ solution, we will keep to it in the eighth volume. Another example of Král’s translation solution is the word luohan 羅漢, for which the Sanskrit term ‘arhat’ was used in the first seven volumes. Nevertheless, we still believe that it would be a better solution to use the transliterated Chinese term luohan, since Král had to explain the meaning of arhat in the first volume’s glossary and the original exotic term was only substituted by another one from similarly remote culture without expressing the meaning of the original. In addition, at least two solutions from the Czech lexicon would sufficiently render the meaning of luohan. The first is the word ‘svatý’ (ENG: ‘saint’), and although it is mainly used in a Christian context in our region, it may still prove appropriate for JPMCZ since within the narrative of the novel the Buddhist context is completely indisputable. The second, and we believe an ideal translation solution, is the word ‘osvícený’ (ENG: ‘enlightened’), which ultimately renders the original meaning into Czech. iii.

Three examples from the opposite (Czech) perspective

There is a notable example of a translatological issue based on the polysemy of a Czech word from chapter 74, which Lucie Olivová noticed and pointed out when proofreading my translation: ST: CZ: ENG:

忽報李學官來還銀子。 ‘V tom pˇrišla zpráva, že pˇrišel uˇcitel Li vrátit vyp˚ujˇcené stˇríbro’ (my translation). ‘Suddenly, it was reported that School Official Liu32 had come to return the silver he had borrowed’ (Xiaoxiaosheng and Roy 2011, 426).

The word ‘stˇríbro’ (ENG: ‘silver’) in Czech has several meanings. It can refer to either metal, currency, or silverware. The collocation huan yinzi 還銀子 in this sentence means to ‘return a sum of silver,’ which is completely explicit in the SL. If translated to the letter, however, the collocation in Czech has a double meaning: apart from the one mentioned above, it could also mean ‘to return silverware.’ We therefore agreed to be thorough even in this trivial and daresay insignificant case and translate the collocation as: ‘vrátit vyp˚ujˇcený obnos ve stˇríbˇre’ (ENG: ‘to return the borrowed sum of silver’). Next, there is a significant difference in what constitutes ‘a house,’ or ‘a home’ in Chinese and Western architecture. In sharp contrast to the Czech tradition, where ‘d˚um’ (ENG: ‘house’) equals a single building, the Chinese house was made up of several courtyards arranged along a central axis, with single buildings surrounding the oblong court. Each wife of Ximen Qing had her private dwelling in one of the 32

Note the trivial blunder in the name of School Official in the English translation, the character of his name in the ST is 李, which is Li, not Liu.

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buildings (this was based on hierarchy, but we do not need to go into such detail). It would therefore be misleading to use the word ‘d˚um’ in either case. We had to look for synonyms that did not sound too technical. On the whole, we mostly use ‘rezidence’ (ENG: ‘residence’) which implies a large layout as well as wealth. For the single buildings, we use, in accordance with the particular context, ‘apartmá’ (ENG: ‘apartments’), or ‘pˇríbytek’ (ENG: ‘dwelling’), none of which has quite the meaning of the SL fang 房. The word men 門 presents a similar difficulty, as it is a single building in the Chinese tradition, and characters often stand there, or hide there in the novel. In the Czech tradition, however, the word ‘dveˇre’ (ENG: ‘door’) means only the doorway, i.e., the opening in the wall, equipped with the door-leaves. It would be helpful to provide the reader with a blueprint of a traditional Chinese house, and we profited from the imagined plan of Ximen Qing’s house, as it appears in Meng Qingtian (2001, 183). One should not go too far, however, with explanations, graphs, and notes, since we are presenting a translation of a novel, not a discourse on Ming culture and habits.

2.3.4

Briefly on Translation of Poetry

Apart from the greater part written in prose, the novel also contains many poems, couplets, and songs originating from various sources (Hanan 1963, 55), or in the words of Qi Lintao (2018, 164), it is ‘a prose interspersed with verse.’ As researchers on JPM agree, the presence of poems and songs in the novel represent a key factor since ‘there are many instances of direct reference between text and poem’ (Satyendra 1989, 22), or in other words, that the prose ‘is regularly interrupted by passages of verse to allow editorial comments, in a detached manner, on persons, places, or events in the tale’ (Hegel 1981, xi). When translating JPM, we often have to act as poets. We approach the translation of songs and poems seriously, as we believe that they are the key bearers of meaning and constitute an essential aesthetic component. We agree with Vibeke Børdahl’s view (2014, 111) that the translator of JPM must try to bring out the storytelling features instead of suppressing them. Above all, we hope that readers will enjoy our translation and the pleasing aesthetic function poetry provides. We believe that when translating poetry, in most cases, we can create the metrical and rhyming effect appropriate in Czech and maintain as much of the meaning of the ST as possible. Since the SL and the TL are not directly commensurable and the verbal means of the two languages cannot be converted mechanically, the translation of poetry demands greater flexibility and greater freedom overall (Levý 2011, 48).

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Table 2 Textual example for translation of poetry ST—Chinese

Czech version (my translation)

Verbatim of the Czech version (my translation)

Roy’s translation (2011, 423)

自我內事迎郎意, 殷 勤愛把紫簫吹

Ve vˇecech intimních tato paní, Milému splní každiˇcké pˇrání, nejlépe vyjádˇrí mu lásku svou, smilnou hrou na flétnu purpurovou

In intimate matters, this lady, fulfills every desire of her dear one, she best expresses her love to him, by wanton play his purple flute

Past mistress of the intimate arts, she caters to his every whim; How quick she is, and diligent, to “play the purple flute”

The amount of verse in the eighth volume is immense33 (as well as in other volumes). It is full of euphemisms, historical and cultural references, and the presentation and analysis of its translation, process, solutions, and theory would suffice for an entire monographic study. Since the extent of our contribution is limited and we have to list not only the Czech translation of the poem but also its verbatim translation to English in order to render its meaning, we will thus present only one example from chapter 74. Although it is a brief one, we mention this example about poetry in order to avoid the impression that we neglect, disregard, or perhaps even omit this essential element of JPM during our translation. The couplet listed below utilizes an ingenious metaphor that illustrates the explicit content of the erotic scene that directly precedes it (Table 2). Apart from the metrical structure, rhyme is an inherent feature of traditional Czech poetry, and as arduous as it often is, we chose to compose the rhyme wherever possible while maintaining most of the original meaning. This is something that Král, over the seven volumes he translated, also successfully achieved, and we similarly would like for our readers to be able to enjoy the translation and the pleasing aesthetic function the poetry provides. The abovementioned heptasyllabic rhymeless couplet from the ST was transferred into decasyllabic verse in the TT using the AABB rhyme scheme. The preset metrical structure is consistent in all the lines, and there is also an internal rhyme between the third and fourth line (‘svou’—‘hrou’—‘purpurovou’). The translation solution of the phallic euphemism zixiao 紫簫 is also notable, since the collocation can be directly calqued on Czech as ‘purpurová flétna’ (ENG: ‘purple flute’), and this verbatim in fact functions as a euphemism in the TL to the same degree as in the SL.

33

The versed episode, for example, from chapter 74 known as the chanting of the Precious Scroll of Lady Huang, which is several thousand characters long (for discussion on the significance of this episode in the novel, see Carlitz 1986, 16); many songs on different tunes that complement the general mood of banquets frequently held in Ximen Qing’s residence throughout the eighth volume; or the short couplets and quatrains used to render and epitomize the many erotic scenes.

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3 Conclusion The first part of this contribution provided insight into the current situation when translating traditional Chinese literature into Czech and introduced several notable Czech sinologists and their key translation works. There is no doubt that Professor Oldˇrich Král was one of the most remarkable personages in the history of Czech sinology. After decades of his fruitful career counting dozens of translations and academic papers, he ventured into his final translation enterprise, the gem of traditional Chinese literature—Jin Ping Mei. He truly worked at an astonishing pace, given his advanced age, and made it quite far. Unfortunately, his own end came before he could depict the end of the notorious main protagonist Ximen Qing to the Czech reader. This is the point where we decided to finish what Oldˇrich Král started. We have to be mindful, however, of the numerous rules and details our predecessor stipulated. As we described in the second half of this paper, our joint translation process has many advantages. We have been consulting one another, for example, when dealing with various translation issues. The specifics of the Czech language greatly influence and complicate the translation process and has its own unique solutions. Compared to the past, the translation process of JPM has been dramatically simplified not only thanks to the use of the Internet, the great amount of available resources, the significant volume of new studies on JPM related topics, and above all, the new annotated Chinese editions and editions translated into major Western languages. We occasionally consulted Král’s solutions in the earlier volumes, but we mostly relied on our invention and translation skills. The examples introduced in the second part of this paper demonstrated that there is no universal solution to each issue. Some translation solutions still have to be complemented by an explanation in the footnote, an endnote, or a glossary. In our translation, we attempt to find a compromise between the exotic and the domestic, a balance between the scientific and the aesthetic, between the accurate and the beautiful. This paper introduces, however, a mere excerpt from the complete amount of various linguistic, historical, cultural, and sinological findings we came across when translating JPM, and we intend to translate more of this content into English so as to make it available to a broader audience. Funding Information Work on this paper was financially supported by the student project Research of the novel Jin Ping Mei and a comparison of its two main editions (IGA_FF_2021_047) of the Palacký University in Olomouc, Czech Republic.

References Bai, Weiguo 白維國. 1991. Jin Ping Mei Cidian 金瓶梅詞典 [Jin Ping Mei Dictionary]. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju. Børdahl, Vibeke. 2014. Translation of Hongloumeng nad Jin Ping Mei into Danish. Dálný východ 4 (2): 103–113. ———. 2016. Tentative Thoughts on the ‘Storyteller’s Manner’ in Jin Ping Mei cihua. Dálný východ 6 (3): 33–47.

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Brömmelhörster, Jörn. 1990. Chinesische Romanliteratur im Westen: Eine Übersetzungskritik des mingzeitlichen Romans Jin Ping Mei [Chinese Fiction in the West: A Translation Review of the Ming dynasty Novel Jin Ping Mei]. Bochum: Herausgeber Chinathemen, Universitätsverlag Dr. N. Brockmeyer, Bochum. Carlitz, Katherine. 1986. Codes and Correspondences in Jin Ping Mei. Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR) 8 (1/2): 7–18. Chvojka, Miloš, and Jiˇrí Skála. 1982. Malý slovník jednotek mˇerˇení [A Small Dictionary of Units of Measurement]. Praha: Mladá fronta. Dauncey, Sarah. 1999. The Politics of Fashion: Perceptions of Power in Female Clothing and Ornamentation as Reflected in the Sixteenth-Century Chinese Novel Jin Ping Mei 金瓶梅. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Durham. Ding, Nanfei. 2002. Obscene Things: Sexual Politics in Jin Ping Mei. Durham: Duke University Press. Hanan, Patrick. 1963. Sources of the Chin P’ing Mei. Asia Major 10 (2): 23–67. Hegel, Robert E. 1981. The Novel in Seventeenth-Century China. New York: Columbia University Press. Hinsch, Bret. 1992. Passions of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual Tradition in China. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hou, Zhongyi 侯忠義, and Rumei Wang 汝梅王, eds. 1986. Jin Ping Mei ziliao huibian 金瓶梅資 料彙編 [Selected Materials on Jin Ping Mei]. Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe. Hu, Yannan 胡衍南. 2014. Jin Ping Mei yinshinannü 《金瓶梅》 飲食男女 [Jin Ping Mei—Wine, Food, and Sex]. Taibei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju. Jandáˇcek, Petr. 2008. Starý Orient v Praze. Sína Drahorádová-Lvová [The Ancient Orient in Prague. ˇ Sína Drahorádová-Lvová]. Orientalia Bohemica. Ceské zemˇe a Orient 2: 134–143. Král, Oldˇrich, and Marie Iljašenko. 2020. Pravdu má situace, ne ˇrád [Situation, Not Order Is Right]. In Král, Oldˇrich. Studie z komparatistiky a cˇ ínské literatury [Selected Studies from Comparative and Chinese Literature], ed. Lucie Olivová, 359–366. Praha: Univerzita Karlova, Filozofická fakulta. Levý, Jiˇrí. 2011. The Art of Translation, trans. Patrick Corness. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Li, Buqing 李布青. 2016. Jin Ping Mei Liyu Suyan 金瓶梅俚語俗諺 [Proverbs and Slang in Jin Ping Mei]. Beijing: Dongfang chubanshe. Liu, Dalin 劉達臨. 2015. Zhongguo xingwenhua shi 中國性文化史 [History of Chinese Sexual Culture]. Wuhan: Wuhan daxue chubanshe. Luo, Junjie. 2012. Translating Jin Ping Mei: A Preliminary Comparison of The Golden Lotus and The Plum in the Golden Vase. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 22 (1): 56–74. McMahon, Keith. 2019. The Art of the Bedchamber and Jin Ping Mei. Nan Nü 21 (1): 1–37. Meng, Qingtian 孟慶田. 2001. Hongloumeng he Jinpingmei zhong de jianzhu 《紅樓夢》 和 《金瓶 梅》 中的建築 [Architecture in the Novels Honglou meng and Jin Ping Mei]. Qingdao: Qingdao chubanshe. Olivová, Lucie, ed. 2006. Klenoty cˇ ínské literatury [The Gems of Chinese Literature]. Praha: Portál. Plaks, Andrew. 1987. The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ———. 1986. The Chongzhen Commentary on the Jin Ping Mei: Gems Amidst the Dross. Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR) 8 (2): 19–30. ˇ Ping Mei [Jin Ping Mei: Graceful Women]. 1992. Translated by Sína P˚uvabné ženy. Cin Drahorádová-Lvová. First edition (1948) Praha: Nakl. Václav Naˇnka; Second edition (1992) Praha: Maxima. Qi, Lintao. 2016. Agents of Latin: An archival research on Clement Egerton’s English translation of Jin Ping Mei. Target 28 (1): 42–60. Qi, Lintao. 2018. Jin Ping Mei English Translations—Texts. Paratexts and Contexts: Routledge. Qi, Lintao. 2021. Translating Sexuality in the Context of Anglo-American Censorship: The Case of Jin Ping Mei. Translation and Interpreting Studies. https://doi.org/10.1075/tis.19010.qi.

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Roy, David. T. 1990. Chang Chu-p’o on How to Read the Chin P’ing Mei (The Plum in the Golden Vase). In How to Read the Chinese Novel, ed. David L. Rolston, 196–243. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Ruan, Fangfu, and Molleen Matsumura, eds. 1991. Sex in China: Studies in Sexology in Chinese Culture. New York: Plenum Press. Satyendra, Indira. 1989. Toward a Poetics of the Chinese Novel: A Study of the Prefatory Poems in the “Chin P’ing Mei tz’u-hua”. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Chicago. Soma, Mitsuru, Kin-aki Kawabata, and Kiyotaka Tanikawa. 2004. Units of Time in Ancient China and Japan. PASJ: Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan 56: 887–904. Sun, Xun 孫遜 and Tongxian Wei 俀賢魏, eds. 1993. Jin Ping Mei jianshang cidian 金瓶梅鑒賞 辭典 [Dictionary for Jin Ping Mei Experts]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe. Švarný, Oldˇrich. 1967. Úvod do hovorové cˇ ínštiny [Introduction to Spoken Chinese]. Praha: SPN. Švarný, Oldˇrich, and David Uher. 2001. Hovorová cˇ ínština. Úvod do studia hovorové cˇ ínštiny [Spoken Chinese. Introduction to the Study of Spoken Chinese]. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci. Van Gulik, Robert. 2003. Sexual Life in Ancient China: A Preliminary Survey of Chinese Sex and Society from ca. 1500 B.C. till 1644 A.D. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Wang, Liqi 王利器. 1988. Jin Ping Mei Cidian 金瓶梅詞典 [Jin Ping Mei Dictionary]. Changchun: Jilin Wenshi Chubanshe. Wang, Ping. 1999. Aching for Beauty: Foot-Binding in China. Doctoral Dissertation. New York University. Xiaoxiaosheng, Lanling. 1981. Jin Ping Mei cihua 金瓶梅詞話, ed. Wang Han 王寒, Gao Shuo 高碩, Qin Zhen 秦蓁, Ling Yin 凌殷, 3 vols. Taibei: Zengnizhi wenhua shiye. ———. 1998. Jin Ping Mei cihua xiaozhu 金瓶梅詞話校註 [Edited and annotated edition of Jin Ping Mei cihua], ed. Feng Qiyong 馮其庸, Bai Weiguo 白維國, Bu Jian 卜鍵, 4 vols. Changsha: Yuelu shushe. Xiaoxiaosheng, Lanling, and Oldˇrich Král. 2012–2018. Jin Ping Mei aneb Slivoˇn ve zlaté váze [Jin Ping Mei, or The Plum in the Golden Vase], 7 vols. Lásenice: Maxima. ———. 2012. Jin Ping Mei aneb Slivoˇn ve zlaté váze, Svazek první [Jin Ping Mei, or The Plum in the Golden Vase. Volume one]. Lásenice: Maxima. ———. 2013. Jin Ping Mei aneb Slivoˇn ve zlaté váze, Svazek druhý [Jin Ping Mei, or The Plum in the Golden Vase. Volume two]. Lásenice: Maxima. ———. 2014. Jin Ping Mei aneb Slivoˇn ve zlaté váze, Svazek tˇretí [Jin Ping Mei, or The Plum in the Golden Vase. Volume three]. Lásenice: Maxima. ———. 2015. Jin Ping Mei aneb Slivoˇn ve zlaté váze, Svazek cˇ tvrtý [Jin Ping Mei, or The Plum in the Golden Vase. Volume four]. Lásenice: Maxima. Xiaoxiaosheng, Lanling, and V.S. Manukhin. 2016. Czin, Pin, M, ili Cvety clivy v zoloto vaze. Pep. B.C. Manyxin i dp.; Coct. i otv. ped. A.I. Kobzev; Ppim. A.I. Kobzeva, B.C.Tackina i B.L. Piftina. T. 4, kn. 1. M.: IB PAH [Jin, Ping, Mei, or Plum Flowers in a Golden Vase. Translated by V.S. Manukhin and others; compiled and edited by A.I. Kobzev, V.S. Taskin and B.L. Riftin. Vol. 4, book. 1, 2. Moscow: IV RAN]. Xiaoxiaosheng, Lanling, and David Tod Roy. 1993. The Plum in the Golden Vase, or, Chin P’ing Mei, vol. 1: The Gathering. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ———. 2011. The Plum in the Golden Vase, or, Chin P’ing Mei, vol. 4: The Climax. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ˇ Xiaoxiaosheng, Lanling, and David Uher. 2005. Polední boj paní Pchan Tin-lien (Zlatého lotosu) v orchidejové lázni [The Last Battle of Lady Pan Jinlian (Golden Lotus) in the Orchid Bath]. In ˇ Cína z antropologické perspektivy [China from the Anthropological Perspective], ed. Kolmaš, Josef and Jaroslav Malina, 262–263. Brno: Nadace Universitas, Akademické nakladatelství Cerm, Masarykova Univerzita, Nakladatelství a vydavatelství Nauma. Zhang, Huiying 張惠英. 1992. Jin Ping Mei li su nan ci jie 金瓶梅俚俗難詞解 [Explanation of Slang, Proverbs and Other Problematic Words from Jin Ping Mei]. Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe.

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Lucie Olivová is Associate Professor at Dept. of Chinese Studies - Center of Asian Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. She obtained her M.A. degree from the University of California at Berkeley (1988) and her Ph.D. degree from Charles University, Prague (1998). She taught courses on Classical Chinese literature and the history of Chinese art, cultural anthropology of traditional China, reading and translation of Chinese texts. Her main research interests are urban culture in Yangzhou during the Qing Dynasty and, more recently, mutual influence in European and Chinese art in the 18th century, particularly Jesuit court painters and chinoiseries in Bohemia. In addition to scholarly articles, she published a number of translations of Chinese classical and modern literary works. Ondˇrej Vicher is a Ph.D. candidate and lecturer at the Department of Asian Studies of Palacký University in Olomouc, where he obtained his M.A. degree (2018) and currently teaches courses on Ancient History of China and Chinese lexicology and lexicography. Before turning to pursue an academic career, he worked as a translator and interpreter from Chinese. The subject of his Ph.D. research is the novel Jin Ping Mei, particularly the differences between its major editions and analysis of sex-related vocabulary. In addition to translating the last 30 chapters of Jin Ping Mei together with Lucie Olivová, he recently started working on the complete and unabridged translation of Sanguo yanyi.

Lessons from Compiling and Translating Homoeroticism in Imperial China Mark Stevenson

Abstract Compiling and translating historical sourcebooks or anthologies can present specific translation challenges, including selecting source material, establishing a translation team, deciding on translation policy, and providing contextualising information. Translating and editing Homoeroticism in Imperial China: A Sourcebook (2013) involved a large range of text genres treating two thousand years or so of an easily misread aspect of Chinese cultural history. It is unusual to have a single translator or translation team prepare an entire anthology, and the article begins with the different skills that justified our “companion collaborative translation” approach throughout. The analysis then moves to areas of cultural and temporal distance and dangers of historical assumption, noting that sweeping sociocultural change in the twentieth-century left Chinese societies distant from aspects of their own pasts. Finally, it is argued that historical translation should be recognised by research bodies as fundamental humanities and social science research, providing valuable insights into human diversity. Keywords Collaborative translation · Traditional Chinese literature · Anthologies and sourcebooks · Homosexuality · Postcolonialism

1 A Book In this chapter, I reflect on my (also “our,” see below) experiences selecting, compiling, and translating Homoeroticism in Imperial China: A Sourcebook (Stevenson and Wu 2013, hereafter Sourcebook), mindful that translating a volume of this kind may have latent lessons for translators and researchers in translation studies, and perhaps even for academic publishers and research administrators. The

Adapted from: Stevenson, Mark. 2020. Lessons from Compiling and Translating Homoeroticism in Imperial China. Translation Horizons 10: 124–137. M. Stevenson (B) The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Qi and S. Tobias (eds.), Encountering China’s Past, New Frontiers in Translation Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0648-0_13

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anthology is principally thematised by sexuality, locality, and time, with all the challenges of interdisciplinarity we would expect with research across time and cultures. It contains translations from over sixty pre-modern Chinese sources on same-sex desire, ranging from histories and philosophers, poetry, drama, fiction, and miscellanies (筆記 biji). The five generic categories—presented in this order—also reflect the chronological development and influence of China’s principle literary genres. All of the selections were translated from classical Chinese or written Chinese vernacular into English by the editor-translators. Translation proceeded as a team working side-by-side in front of the ST. As one of the two editor-translators, I prepared the contextualising introductions accompanying each item and also the introductions to each genre section. If my memory is correct, the entire project took us around four years, from June 2008 when we submitted a book proposal to Routledge to May 2012 when we submitted the files of the completed manuscript, or five years if we consider the period of book preparation between 2012 and the book’s release in 2013. In part, the book’s conception and design along genre and chronological lines was inspired by Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: A Sourcebook of Basic Documents, edited by Thomas K. Hubbard (2003). Hubbard’s volume, however, assembled previously published items translated by a range of scholars for a range of different purposes. I am not sure if there are many sourcebooks where all contents were entirely translated by the same translator or co-translators, as our selections were. We decided on that strategy because one of the aims of the project was to address what we perceived as misperceptions and errors appearing in previous translations of homoerotic material from Chinese history, largely a result of “modern” perspectives that assume a story of general cultural interdiction.

2 A Translation Team and Approach To put our work on the book in context, at least in part, it may be useful to consider the translations we had published together up to that time as we developed as a “companion collaborative translation” team (Trzeciak Huss 2018). We started with a translation of Chipozi zhuan 痴婆子傳 (“A Tale of an Infatuated Woman”), a very explicit erotic tale from the late sixteenth century, which we published in Renditions 譯叢 in 2002. Cuncun had a photocopy of the 1764 woodblock edition and was working on an English version of her paper treating karmic retribution in erotic fiction. We guessed there should be interest in this little-known early work of erotic fiction, and Renditions’ editors at the Chinese University of Hong Kong accepted it without any hesitation. The relationship with Renditions led to an invitation to translate a play for a special edition of the journal focused on the legends of Wang Zhaojun (王昭君) for the following year (Stevenson and Wu 2003), followed several years later by a translation of a nineteenth-century examination candidate’s memoir of homoerotic flirtations with actors in Beijing, Fengcheng pinhuaji 鳳城品花記 (“Notes on Flower Appreciation in the Phoenix City,” 1874). We were also very

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grateful to the editorial team at Renditions for their patience and extensive expertise in Chinese-English literary translation during the preparation all three works. All the above fitted much more within Cuncun’s range of expertise than mine. Until then, as an anthropologist teaching at Victoria University in Melbourne, I had been solely focused on my research into the revival of Tibetan art in China after 1978. My only previous experience of translation was a Tibetan short story as well as passages from a history of the Tibetan region of Amdo. Despite two stints at university in China, Liaoning University 1984–1986 (studying language), and Sichuan University 1989–1991 (minority nationality history and conducting doctoral fieldwork), I had an embarrassingly vague knowledge of China’s literary landscape, and, even more embarrassingly, very little knowledge of the Sinological context that informed the study of Chinese literature in the West. Cuncun’s first attempt at publishing in English, the paper on karmic retribution in erotic fiction, was rejected precisely as a consequence of our not being up to speed with Sinological convention and the existing Western scholarship (we eventually rewrote it together [Wu and Stevenson 2011]). Cuncun, by contrast, had an extraordinary education in traditional Chinese literature, starting at home during the Cultural Revolution (1966– 1976). She had subsequently completed her BA majoring in Chinese literature at Hangzhou University, later completing an MA thesis on scholar-beauty romance fiction (才子佳人小説 caizijiaren xiaoshuo) at Nankai University, where she also taught classical Chinese literature. Her first single-authored book, Ming-Qing shehui xing’ai fengqi (明清社會性愛風氣 Sex and sensibility in Ming and Qing society, 1999), came out just as she started her doctoral studies under Professor Anne E. McLaren in Australia, but she had been publishing academic articles on same-sex desire in traditional Chinese literature since 1992. Originally a theme she had noticed when working on scholar-beauty fiction, homoerotic sensibilities in late imperial China became the focus of her doctoral dissertation and her first book in English (Wu 2004). What initially caught my attention in her work was the this-worldly mysticism of the “Learning of the Mind” (心學 xinxue) strand of late-Ming neo-Confucianism, an intellectual trend that formed much of the background to the literary currents she was researching. It was the strong Buddhist undercurrent within the Learning of the Mind literature that interested me, as well as the paradox of its role in the onset of late-Ming libertinism. I tend to see the late-Ming period as China’s own “Enlightenment,” a turn from tradition to rationality that was driven by commerce. As occurred in Europe, one consequence of the new intellectual attention to everyday life was a flood of pornographic writing (Hunt 1993). In China, Cuncun’s work wasn’t just new in giving scope to gender and sexuality in cultural history—it was part of a wider reappraisal of Learning of the Mind (Israel 2016). As well as collaborating on the separate works mentioned above, I offered to work together with Cuncun on passages from Chinese literature that appear in her thesis and later her book, Homoerotic Sensibilities in Late Imperial China. As part of this budding companion translation team, my main principle was to listen carefully to what Cuncun read and said as we worked on each item, which is to say, with a sense of curiosity that suspended judgement, nevertheless trying to tie everything I was hearing into patterns that fitted together in their own terms: “How was what I

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was hearing part of what else was happening back then?” This contextualism and suspension of preconceptions comes with cultivating an anthropologist’s attitude of cultural relativism in communication with cultural “others” (Pollio et al. 1997). I was also by this time reading studies of gender and sexuality in Chinese history published in English language scholarship, gradually getting a feel for Sinological expectations as well as getting better acquainted with the historical Chinese material through Western scholarship.1 Working alongside Cuncun, I was not only accumulating lessons in translating primary source material, each item we translated was a new lesson in reading literary Chinese and reading cultural history. As we worked on Cuncun’s source materials, we became increasingly aware of the constraints in academic writing that mostly limited translated passages to short extracts. Pulling out isolated lines or poems here or there, as was inevitably being done in academic studies, seemed mostly concerned with merely pointing to the existence of homoerotic references in the literary and historical archives, or in some cases, refuting their value as evidence. Homoerotic Sensibilities in Late Imperial China was all about exploring the significance of homoerotic references in the context of elite male libertinism that reached much further back in history. The continuity, abundance, and range of materials suggested the possibility of an anthology where, in translation, they could be read in a fuller form. The historical sources were more than simply evidence—they were intricate stories, poems, and plays that were created to move and amuse, to bring laughter, puzzlement, or pause for thought. “Notes on Flower Appreciation in the Phoenix City,” published in Renditions in 2008, was our first attempt at translating a complete work of homoerotic writing. This was around the time we approached Routledge, the publisher of Cuncun’s book, convinced of the rewards of investing time in an anthology project. By that time, as we explained in our book proposal, the subject of homoeroticism in Chinese history was “proving to be a minefield for both specialists and non-specialists alike, and there [were] growing problems of definition, misunderstanding, oversight, and ignorance within international scholarship, largely as a result of the difficulties of classical Chinese and the neglect of context.” Interest, we surmised, existed in three primary areas: scholars and students in area studies (Chinese Studies, Asian Studies), scholars and students in gender and sexuality studies, and the interested public. Under these circumstances, our main aim was to make accurate translations available in a form that would be both informative and literary, which meant that items in the anthology could be appreciated as translated literature, not just historical document. This addressed the two broad markets or readerships we had 1

Writing about the “construction” of anthropology as a field, Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson sum up a situation that could describe the construction of Sinology or Chinese Studies: “Other national traditions are marginalized by the workings of geopolitical hegemony, experienced as a naturalized common sense of academic ‘center’ and ‘periphery.’ Anthropologists working at the ‘center’ learn quickly that they can ignore what is done in peripheral sites at little or no professional cost, while any peripheral anthropologist who similarly ignores the ‘center’ puts his or her professional competence at issue (‘They’re so out of it, they haven’t even heard of X’)” (1997, 27). These are structures familiar to post-colonial translation studies through the work of Tejaswini Niranjana (1992) and Maria Tymoczko (1999).

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in mind, academic and general. The primary academic market would be universitybased researchers and their students in post-graduate and upper-level undergraduate classes in the broad areas of social sciences and cultural studies, including gender studies, gay and lesbian studies, comparative literature, history, and anthropology. But we also expected interest from, and sought to meet the needs of, well-educated readers interested in sexual and gender minorities and literary expressions of samesex desire. Because works in classical Chinese have become increasingly inaccessible, we thought a good part of general reader interest would also come from English speakers in China and in Chinese heritage communities overseas.

3 Lesson One: Writing What Isn’t Written In a project ranging across several genres and two and a half millennia we were bound to face innumerable challenges, large and small, and this is not the place to conduct anything approaching a complete survey of them. Instead, I will limit myself to two or three passages that illustrate several of the challenges gender and sexuality pose for literary translation. The first passage is taken from a vernacular short story (話本 huaben), “A Male ‘Mother of Mencius’ Educates His Son and Moves House Three Times” (男孟母教合三遷 Nan Mengmu jiaohe sanqian, hereafter “Male ‘mother of Mencius’”), penned by the great seventeenth-century satirist Li Yu (李漁 1611– 1680). It is a story that was already quite well-known—and widely discussed—in Chinese Studies, in large part through the translation by Gopal Sukhu and Patrick Hanan (1990). There were no glaring problems with the existing translation, it was simply an important story that would be missed if omitted, and one of our compilation principles was that we translate everything in the sourcebook ourselves. As a work of literature, “Male ‘Mother of Mencius’” holds much that is of interest for literary translation, as satire is often a dialogical, carnivalesque genre that requires writing with several points of view visible at once—usually achieved through a mix of registers. These were challenges China’s early-modern fiction writers and readers clearly enjoyed, but that can leave twenty-first-century translators and readers with some tough ground to cover. “Male ‘Mother of Mencius’” tells the story of You Ruilang, a beautiful and much sought-after young Fujianese boy, who is seduced by Xu Jifang, a scholar-official on the lookout for a “step-wife” (續弦 xuxian, “replacement lute”) after losing his first wife at the birth of their son. Improbably, Jifang is a former catamite (龍陽 longyang) who had risen socially through wining examination honours. Once he and Ruilang are married and cohabitating, his “insider knowledge” leads him both to appreciate Ruilang’s devotion as well as fear his maturing “manhood below his waist” (腰下的人道 yaoxia de rendao). Ruilang reassures him that in a committed relationship like theirs he will never be tempted by women, and should he experience unwanted desires he can always turn to masturbation. But this is not enough to assuage Jifang’s fears, as we see in the following passage, where there are also several enlightening instances of problems challenging translators.

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The complexion of older people is not as good as those in the prime of life, and the complexions of those in the prime of life is not as good as those in their youth. And why is that? You should know that the volume of the vapours running through the kidneys [腎水的消長] influences the quality of a person’s complexion [顏色的盛衰]. Do you know why you are so good-looking at this moment in time? Your original store of virile energy has yet to be depleted [元陽未泄]. You are just like an unopened flower bud in which the original vitality remains concentrated [根本上的精液總聚在此處], and so you have a glowing complexion and a sweet-scented body. Once it is opened and your vitality has an outlet [精液就有了去路] your complexion will become duller and duller day by day and your scent will be weaker and weaker day by day, and in time they will all dry up. The stuff you release [遣出來的東西] when you now seek relief [遣興] is in no way trivial, it is the very glow of your skin and the shine on your face. Every loss from below has a corresponding loss from above [底下去了一分, 上面就少了一分]. There’s nothing you can do about it personally, it is just one of the facts of human life, and no one can escape the transition from youth to old age. Who can remain young forever? Having immeasurable love for you and no way to preserve your youth, I had to get it off my chest, but there is nothing to do beyond accepting it. Ruilang was terrified by what he heard. “That he loves me so devotedly now all hangs upon my beauty,” he thought to himself, “If by any chance my original vitality is released [元陽泄去] and my beauty is lost he’ll grow tired of me, and then even if I haven’t broken off with him he’ll end up dumping me. What should I do?” Speaking to Jifang he said, “I had no idea the thingy2 was so terrible. In that case, please stop worrying, I will find a way to handle it.” A few days later Jifang rose early and left the house to go to a scheduled examination. Ruilang got up and attended to his morning toilet. Taking a mirror he found a bright corner and looked himself over, and as he did so he became anxious. “Looking at my face,” he reflected, “it is really different to what it was. In the white there used to be a hint of pink, but now the white is even paler and the pink is thin. Could what he said really be true? Is that sticky stuff [膿血] really so crucial as that? He has sold all his property and has nothing left to support him through life, and if our family had never run into him neither of my parents would have had a decent resting place. He has been so kind and I have not begun to repay him, how can I allow myself to age like this?”

Reading this passage some seven years later—while I know it was polished and set aside and polished several times more—there are still segments I might be tempted to smooth further in the direction of target language expectations, and segments I think were taken too far in the same direction. These are doubts a writer might have after a passage of time as well, but as a translator I think of them as highlighting the difference between the set of instincts we have with the source text in front of us and the instincts we have once the source text has been put aside. For example, the parallelism evident in the ST is not quite so apparent in the TT “You should know that the volume of the vapours running through the kidneys influences the quality of a person’s complexion” (要曉得腎水的消長, 就關於顏色的盛衰). In Chinese vernacular literature, parallelism, which is more natural to classical writing, is commonly used to convey particular kinds of emphasis, in this case an argument for 2

Here zhe jian dongxi (這件東西). Elsewhere in our translation of this story we use “thingy” to translate ci wu (此物), which the narrator and Jifang use to refer to the penis, or more specifically to Ruilang’s penis. While Jifang also refers to Ruilang’s penis as zhe jian dongxi when pointing to it, the distinction is one of register, with ciwu being a more formal, but nevertheless humorous, term. Ci wu may be a formal equivalent influenced by the vernacular na hua (那話, “that word,” i.e. “the unmentionable;” “that organ” in Roy’s translation) found in Jinpingmei cihua (金瓶梅詞話).

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an indisputably natural correlation. In the translation process we aimed for smooth reading, and parallelism in our TT is therefore sometimes only observable to someone looking for it. A structure where the rhythm of the first segment was reflected in the second would have better conveyed the naturalness of the link between both segments. Our instincts regarding other examples of smoothing in this sentence were good: “volume” instead of “ebb and flow,” “quality” instead of “rise and fall,” which preserve a contrast in the parallel structure of the ST. “Vapours running through the kidneys” runs close to the imagery of the ST, but the ST term (腎水 jianshui, “kidney fluid”) is a synonym for “semen”: had we in fact written “semen” instead of the longer locution we would have ended up with a more parallel TT structure (but lost the traditional Chinese medicine theory the passages is intended to mimic). Overly direct translation would confuse and smoothing further would supress both the imagery and the underlying theory of causality. Further work on the second segment may have produced something along the lines of “You should know that the volume of the vapours running through the kidneys influences the quality of the colour visible in a person’s cheeks,” which would have preserved the mirroring in the ST. I expect, nevertheless, that the finality in the rhythm of the published TT is the right note to strike for readers who will be more interested in the fate of the two men than in a foreign rhetorical structure—and who might find a link between kidneys and cheeks distracting. The problem, however, is not simply one of preserving cultural information from the ST in the TT. Li Yu enjoys shifts in register and diction, as we would expect from a man of the theatre, and there is no reason to doubt such playfulness played a large part in his literary success (Mei 2011, 238). He can take wicked delight in the antics of his characters, but will indulge in a more censorious tone when the social situation he portrays requires some inflation before an eventual deflation. At this point in Li Yu’s tale, Ruilang and Jifang face a very serious obstacle to the future of their loving relationship. Nevertheless, the author is intent on his reader smiling at their fix—even while sharing a little of their dismay. In this passage, the effects of register and diction are in large part achieved through the technical language of traditional Chinese sexual hygienics; a register in keeping with Jifang’s scholar-official status, but all the same a very strange way in which to speak to a lover. The entire paragraph is a mini lecture that progressively informs the reader, just as it instructs Ruilang. Recreating something of these effects is one of the pleasures of working in literary translation, but how is a reader who has no knowledge of the place of sexual hygiene in Chinese theories of health able to follow the semi-serious comical logic of a passage if it is filled with mysterious jargon? We chose to find ways of conveying Jifang’s science that sidestepped the technical English versions of traditional Chinese medicine terminology. Li Yu makes it easy for his readers by announcing the central issue first, namely the danger that masturbation represents for Ruilang’s as yet un-depleted “original store of virile energy” (元陽 yuanyang, “original male,” the subtle basis of semen-as-manifest-life-substance located in the kidneys). Using a strategy that many storytellers use, a translator can seek to manage how new knowledge is introduced and augmented: “vapours running through the kidneys,” “virile energy,” “vitality,” “stuff,” and “sticky stuff” (膿血 nongxue “mix of puss and blood”).

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Progressing from the subtlest imagery to the coarsest, Li Yu is all talk about semen without naming it directly, for even when he does name “it” (精液 jingye), it is so subsumed within the medical jargon that we must also choose not to name it (hence “vitality”).3 Concern about the effects of over-expenditure of semen on overall health was until recently very common in Western culture, but if it was ever accompanied by complex biological or humoural theories, they are long forgotten. When examples such as this passage are considered, for Sourcebook to be useful for readers interested in cross-cultural study of gender and sexuality, we had to produce translations that preserved a high level of cultural nuance—a combination of cultural information and aesthetic or literary impact—which was why we had committed to using our own translations exclusively from the outset. We also subscribed to what we might call a principle of the “Renditions school of translation,” where footnotes are kept to a minimum and cultural information is integrated unobtrusively within the body of the TT—after all, it is the text body that is more likely to be quoted and reproduced.

4 Lesson Two: Replacing the Past It is well-known in Western scholarship, at least since the appearance of Colin Mackerras’s The Rise of Peking Opera, 1770–1870 (1972), that male same-sex desire was an integral part of the evolution and popularity of Beijing opera, and also that elite men—capital examination candidates, scholar-officials, and merchants—spent much of their spare time competing for the attentions of the most popular stars. All of the actors were male, and the residences (私寓 siyu) of the most popular among them functioned like exclusive nightclubs (Wu 2017). There was also a less upmarket “pear garden bathhouse” scene (梨園堂子 liyuan tangzi). Because of the amount of homoerotic theatregoing literature available, most of it initially collected by Zhang Cixi 張次溪 (1988 [1937]), we included a special section in the “Drama” part of Sourcebook (“3.2 Flower-Guides”), with some selections also appearing under “Poetry,” “Fiction,” and “Miscellanies.” Peking Opera’s transformation into a national art form over the twentieth century has made its association with male same-sex prostitution a matter of some sensitivity. While eventually published, our translation of Fengcheng pinhuaji (鳳城品花記 Notes on Flower Appreciation in the Phoenix City; 1874), a tragicomic memoir of one examination candidate’s affairs with several stars from the Beijing stage, was not received as warmly at Renditions as our other translations (it was not included in Sourcebook as a matter of space). The fact that the glories of Peking Opera had 3

There is nothing so coarse as to mention this “stuff” directly—Derrida would have had a field day, for in having so many names it may not have a name of its own. “The seed must submit to the logos. And in so doing, it must do violence to itself, since the natural tendency of sperm is opposed to the law of logos [the authority of rational discourse],” concludes Derrida in his discussion of Plato’s Timaeus (Derrida 2004, 153); see also Ding Naifei’s insistence on the compound “essence/semen” in Obscene Things: Sexual Politics in Jin Ping Mei (2002, 289).

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an inglorious side (depending on one’s perspective) has also affected how those working on theatre history have quoted and translated historical materials. An instructive example can be found in a paper by Wei Shu-chu 魏淑珠 which compares renaissance theatre performances with Peking Opera (Wei 1990). Her discussion refutes the common perception that Chinese acting was distant and unemotional, directing reader’s attention to what historical sources say about the experience and space of the theatre. A passage from Yang Maojian’s (楊懋建) Menghua suobu (夢華瑣簿 Fragmentary Records from Dreams of Past Glory, 1843) is included describing the seating arrangements in a nineteenth-century teahouse theatre. An ellipsis indicating missing material appears after the passage reaches the guanzuo (官座), or “aristocratic seats” (Wei 1990, 119), before continuing. What those deleted sentences contained is quite instructive. The first sentence reads: “The [balcony] table second from stage exit is the most expensive because patrons are able to meet the eyes of the dan as they exit from the stage, confirming their intentions” (官座以下塲門第二座爲最貴, 以其搴簾將入時便於擲心賣眼, Sourcebook, 125). The remaining expurgated material consists of lines of poetry from several roughly contemporary sources that confirm the advantages of theatre seats in this position. Omitting the lines of poetry might be understandable in an architectural description; however, the sentence describing actor-patron flirtation was crucial for understanding the theatre layout and its relationship to audience experience. Indeed, the ST citation of poetic lines at this point tends to suggest this erotic aspect of theatre layout was what was most important for at least one section of this audience—literati men. Back in 1990, readers were kept in the dark about this aspect of the nineteenth-century Beijing theatre experience, and this problem no doubt continues in many publications today. While I refer to Menghua suobu as the ST for the example above, the passage included in Wei Shu-chu’s paper was not translated directly from that source (i.e. Menghua suobu as collected in Zhang Cixi’s Qingdai Yandu liyuan shiliao),4 but from Chen Wannai’s (陳萬鼐) Yuan-Ming-Qing xiqu shi (元明清戲曲史 A history of the theatre of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing) (Chen 1980, 615–16, as cited in Wei 1990, 133 n.21). This raises the question of who deleted the missing sentences: were they removed in 1980 by Chen Wannai when compiling his history of the theatre, or were they removed by Wei Shu-chu when she was translating the passage to include in her paper? Wei does not comment on the omission, and I have not been able to access Chen’s book to check. In presenting us with a “mystery,” the omission contains lessons both for anthologists and translators. In tampering with our sources, we assume a great deal about who our readers are and the information they require, and we should acknowledge where omissions or changes have been made, and why. There is no doubt in my mind that the omitted material was removed because of an assumption that, in these “modern” times, Peking Opera’s associations with samesex desire are part of a (now) shameful past that best remains in the past. The more 4

Wei was aware of Zhang’s collection (Wei 1990, 133 n.22).

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generous interpretation would be that whoever removed the material did not understand the importance of same-sex desire in Peking Opera’s development. In either case, the action speaks of the difficult relationship of China’s past to representations of China in the present.

5 Summary Lessons: Tracing Assumptions In the twentieth century, a series of Western assumptions about same-sex desire became Chinese assumptions. This is not the place to rehearse the history of that influence: in many ways the study of how such assumptions were adapted or “translated” has only just begun (Sang 2003; Wu and Stevenson 2006; Kang 2009; Chiang 2019). The question of how this history differed between Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Overseas Chinese communities is still to be addressed, and what has been “established” so far is sure to be revealed as full of historical errors and misreadings.5 One of the hopes we have for Sourcebook is that it will contribute to a translation of assumptions in the other direction, or even better, several other directions. As they are usually hidden, however, assumptions are tricky things to avoid. Meticulous research is not as dependable as continuous meticulousness and reassessment. The careful bilingual reader, for example, might have noticed that our translation of the line from Menghua suobu cited above silently inserts a reference to dan (旦, here actors playing female lead) that is not explicit in the ST. In the light of my reflections on “tampering,” the insertion should have been indicated, even if what we added was implied as a requirement of the sentence (ST and TT) coming together in a way that made sense. In the sense that signalling of intentions between elite male patrons and actors is what the sentence described, there is no mistake, but to assume further that actor-prostitutes all played dan (female lead) roles is a misunderstanding, albeit a widespread and modern misunderstanding.6 Our understanding of actor-patron flirtation has evolved over recent years to a point where it is now clear that any young actor attracting attention could become sought after, not only those playing female roles (Wu 2017). This point was made clear in the introduction to the “Flower-Guides” section (3.2) of Sourcebook, but our anthologised passage from Menghua suobu reproduced assumptions that were current in research when Cuncun’s Homeroticism in Late Imperial Chinese Literature was published in 2004. This example is an opportunity to reflect on the practice of domesticating terminology in terms of what the modern (Western) mind is in the habit of categorising, 5

One example is Kang Wenqing’s reading of Ming literati conceptions of pi (癖, hankering, predilection, obsession) as having pathological connotations (2009, 21). Kang meticulously draws on etymology and modern sexological publications, but neglects broad consultation of Ming literati writing. We had drawn attention to earlier examples of the dangers and difficulties in a paper published in Tamkang Review (Stevenson and Wu 2004). I address some of my own errors below. 6 Menghua suobu employs both ling(ren) (伶[人], “actor/s”) and dan when referring to actors, but ling(ren) is by far the more common appellation.

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a practice possibly more common when writing for theatre studies or gender studies publications, but common enough also in Sinological writing on cultural history. I am thinking of terms such as “crossed-dressed,” “transvestite,” “female impersonator,” “male courtesan-actor,” or “male courtesan” to describe dan actors, or even actorprostitutes (相公 xianggong) in general. It is perhaps understandable that during the earliest cross-cultural attempts to document same-sex desire and gender ambiguity in English TTs that these existing terms were latched upon as ready-to-hand “near equivalents,” and it may even be the case that they are preferable to nakedly descriptive language such as “actor-prostitute” (although it is hard to see how). In choosing a strategy, it is important to be mindful of how such approximations will be re-used or re-translated beyond the context of the TT and into wider discourses of generalisation and assimilation. The nineteenth-century stage actor in Beijing was not an “impersonator,” but an actor playing a gendered role. Similarly, he was not a “transvestite,” but put on a female costume to act a part. When he met his patrons at restaurants or at his private apartment he was usually dressed in stylish male couture: extravagant, chic, perhaps feminine, but not female. I don’t wish to be categorical in drawing these distinctions. In most instances they need not be a problem for the translator when translating pre-modern works of literature, largely because literary texts rarely use “terminology” (always precious nuggets when they appear, but not to be read as finally definitive). Terminology is related more closely to explanation than translation. It is in the preparation of translations’ paratexts (prefaces, introductions, footnotes, and dare I say, anthologies) that we mostly do this other “translation” work of introducing our topics into terminological systems that fall outside the text (Qi 2018). Paratextual systems govern and facilitate the text’s consumption, as well as guiding the integration of an ST’s language into that of the TT’s language, even as the flux of language always introduces indeterminacy (Benjamin 1992, 81). Sinology may profitably be thought of as such a paratextual system, as may other area studies in general. The philological meticulousness it stakes as its foundation is also its claim to authority. Assessing the impact of philological approaches to translation, which “have remained the norm for translating the native texts of minority and non-Western cultures,” Maria Tymoczko concludes: Through the silences of the positivist editor and translator, the ambiguities and difficulties of the marginalized text, as well as the fallibilities and uncertainties of the translator, are equally erased. The process perpetuates the panoptic ideal of the imperialist gaze, which confers perfect knowledge on the observer/translator (flawed only by “corruptions” in the source text), at the same time the text to be translated is downgraded in status from a piece of literature to a non-literary work […] inscribing it within a scholarly framework shaped by dominant Western values […] coded into philological practices themselves. (1999, 269)

Accuracy and reliability were high on the list of aims for Sourcebook when we submitted our book proposal to Routledge. It was our feeling that despite a great deal of meticulousness, the Sinological apparatus was getting a great deal wrong about same-sex desire in Chinese tradition. In the majority of cases our concerns had to do with judgements regarding same-sex desire in modern Western culture being ventriloquised into Chinese texts from centuries or even millennia ago. And the influence of those dominant Western narratives has been so pervasive globally that it

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hardly mattered where a translator or cultural historian had grown up (Chow 1993), or even what positions they held regarding same-sex desire. Working against that unidirectional flow has particular implications for what “accuracy and reliability” should mean. For our project, it meant a desire to have perspectives from a different past make the present’s blindness visible to itself. Indeed, it is refreshing to see how non-official genres of pre-modern writing show little concern for fixing judgements— leaving room for personal ethics and taste. “To read existing translations against the grain,” writes Tejaswini Niranjana, “is also to read colonial historiography from a post-colonial perspective, and a critic alert to the ruses of colonial discourse can help uncover what Walter Benjamin calls the ‘second tradition,’ the history of resistance […] [t]he post-colonial desire to retranslate is linked to the desire to re-write history” (1992, 172, original emphasis). Without in any way wanting to take away from the painful acts of remembering to which Niranjana refers, we would be foolish to persuade ourselves that epistemic violence has come to an end for minority and non-Western cultures. In which case, to initiate new translations against the grain is linked to a desire to re-write the future. Is an anthropologist “a critic alert to the ruses of colonial discourse,” or a collaborator in those ruses, as anthropology’s own self-critique has exposed?7 As Cuncun led us into the texts I was conscious of our being shadowed by familiar, ready-to-hand ideas that could very easily have blocked access to the different world that was opening up. If we have indeed succeeded in opening up that different world (or worlds), it will be in no small part because the translation was a collaboration led by someone with many years’ reading and interpreting the sources and their contexts. As we wrote in the introduction, “The main advantage of side-by-side collaboration, as we see it, was the sense of immediacy, colour, space and tone created in an act of communication that was voiced and heard, a cultural historian and an anthropologist each asking questions of the other (and the texts) as the hermeneutic horizon of the past was brought to life” (Stevenson and Wu 2013, 7, original emphasis). Thanks to Cuncun’s ability in most cases to “sight-read” the sources, often texts she had read previously, this process did often feel as if I was being introduced to a living textual world.8 Reading and hearing the texts as Cuncun read or paraphrased aloud produced a very different sense of space and action as I translated and typed what came to mind in my reading-hearing alongside her. Re-reading and re-checking always followed, but our translations benefited from the living rhythms that this style of side-by-side work injected into our first drafts. From the beginning of the Sourcebook project, we were mindful of how in the philological mode the “the text to be translated is downgraded in status from a piece 7

Anthropology is of course not alone in this association; as Edward Said notes in Cuture and Imperialism, “the study of ‘comparative literature’ originated in the period of high European imperialism and is irrecusably linked to it” (1994, 43). 8 By “sight-read” here I mean an ability analogous to sight-reading or sight-singing in musical performance, which is to say an ability to accurately read and voice aloud fluently without preparation, or, in this case, without recourse to dictionaries, parsing, or other intermediate steps that would “hinder the flux of [the] performance” (Schütz 1951, 85). Schütz argued that musicians’ ability to share their skills in this immediate way created space for an experience of mutuality.

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of literature to a non-literary work,” as Tymoczko put it in the passage just cited. Academic citation in general does extraordinary violence—dismemberment—to the texts on which it draws, on top of the violence done by translation. In setting as one of our aims the making of translations that preserve the aesthetic qualities evident in the original sources, we were not pretending to be able to produce texts that would move or delight readers in the way the STs had once done; more modestly, we sought to draw attention to a remarkably sophisticated and complex literary tradition free of culturally institutionalised forms of homophobia (Furth 1988, 6–7). An anthology was an appropriate “venue” through which to draw attention to a story of literary continuity. The Renditions approach of keeping academic apparatus to a minimum aimed at allowing readers freedom to focus on the literary qualities of the selections. Sourcebook was not translation in the philological mode; instead, we sought a particular approach to academic research given shape through the side-byside procedure of our companion translation team. As translators of late-imperial Chinese literature, Cuncun and I (both together and separately) also research and publish critical articles, chapters, and books that can be described as literary or cultural history. We therefore appear to be “researchertranslators” in the sense that this category has been applied by Rick Qi to David T. Roy (1933–2016), the translator of a new five-volume English translation of Jin Ping Mei 金瓶梅 (Roy 1983–2013).9 As it stands, the hyphenated category of “researcher-translator” can include a number of different situations and methods: in his description of Roy as a researcher-translator, I interpret Qi as describing a “scholar-translator” who, in translating a monumental work of literature, took up a task requiring decades of exhaustive research in interaction with Jin-ology and graduate students (Qi 2018, 6). The book’s five volumes provide the TT while also documenting the research that supported its production (providing textual history, evidence for translation decisions, and cultural notes for the reader). As told above, the way research and translation are interwoven in the production and backstory of Sourcebook is very different to The Plum in the Golden Vase, but the category “researcher-translator” allows me to conclude by making a plea for the recognition of literary translation as research, particularly in area studies. This should be the case whether or not it comes with enormous scholarly apparatus attached. (In some parts of the world, and I am thinking first of Australia, national research funding bodies make it clear that they do not fund translation, and nor do they measure translation as research output.)10 Firstly, translation forms the bedrock of area studies; in any other field its relationship to other forms of research progress would mean it was classed as “basic” or “foundational research.” Second, the objection that translation cannot, by 9

I suspect this literary translation use of “researcher-translator” needs to be differentiated from another common use where it denotes a member of a research team who interprets during interviews or otherwise translates information needed for a project (typically in social science research). 10 Translation in the philological mode may attract funding if the project also produces a body of text critical studies. Sourcebook did benefit in part from Australian Research Council Discovery Grant funding by being associated with a different project, with translation of dramatic works included as a minor part of that project overall. Being both “edited” (another loaded term) and “translated” meant having the book recognised in “research output” accounting was a major struggle.

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definition, represent original research only betrays continuing ignorance of the translation process and its products. Third, particularly in the English-speaking world, the entire humanities area would be a very desolate place without the fund of translated literature and theory on which it draws. And fourth, in a great deal of academic writing in area studies, what otherwise passes as analysis consists of paraphrases and condensations that take unforgivable shortcuts. In addition to these arguments against the standard objections, we could also add that the knowledge, experience, and perspective gained from extensive engagement in literary or historical translation nourish and support researchers in their ongoing engagement in cross-cultural inquiry.

References Benjamin, Walter. 1992 [1923]. The Task of the Translator. In Illuminations, ed. Hanna Arendt, trans. Harry Zohn, 70–82. London: Fontana Press. Chen, Wannai. 1980. Yuan-Ming-Qing xiqu shi [A History of the Theatre of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing]. Taibei: Dingwen. Chiang, Howard. 2019. Sexuality. In The Making of the Human Sciences in China: Historical and Conceptual Foundations, ed. Howard Chiang, 220–242. Leiden: Brill. Chow, Rey. 1993. Writing Diaspora: Tactics of Intervention in Contemporary Cultural Studies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Ding, Naifei. 2002. Obscene Things: Sexual Politics in Jin Ping Mei. Durham: Duke University Press. Derrida, Jacques. 2004 [1972]. Dissemination, trans. Barbara Johnson. London: Continuum Books. Furth, Charlotte. 1988. Androgynous Males and Deficient Females: Biological and Gender Boundaries in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century China. Late Imperial China 9 (2): 1–31. Gupta, Akhil, and James Ferguson. 1997. Discipline and Practice: ‘The Field’ as Site, Method and Location in Anthropology. In Anthropological Locations: Boundaries and Grounds of a Field Science, ed. Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson, 1–46. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hubbard, Thomas K. 2003. Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: A Sourcebook of Basic Documents. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hunt, Lynne, ed. 1993. The Invention of Pornography: Obscenity and the Origins of Modernity, 1500–1800. New York: Zone Books. Israel, George L. 2016. The Renaissance of Wang Yangming Studies in the People’s Republic of China. Philosophy East and West 66 (3): 1001–1019. Kang, Wenqing. 2009. Obsession: Male Same-Sex Relations in China, 1900–1950. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Mackerras, Colin. 1972. The Rise of Peking opera, 1770–1870. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Mei Chun. 2011. The Novel and Theatrical Imagination in Early Modern China. Leiden: Brill. Niranjana, Tejaswini. 1992. Siting Translation: History, Post-Structuralism, and the Colonial Context. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pollio, Howard R., Tracy B. Henley, and Craig J. Thompson. 1997. Dialogue as Method. In The Phenomenology of Everyday Life: Empirical Investigations of Human Experience, 28–55. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Qi, Lintao. 2018. Jin Ping Mei English Translations: Texts, Paratexts, and Contexts. Abingdon: Routledge. Roy, David T. 1993–2013. The Plum in the Golden Vase, or Chin P’ing Mei, 5 vols. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Said, Edward. 1994. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage Books.

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Sang, Tze-lan D. 2003. The Emerging Lesbian: Female Same-Sex Desire in Modern China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Schütz, Alfred. 1951. Making Music Together: A Study in Social Relationship. Social Research 18 (1): 76–97. Stevenson, Mark, and Wu Cuncun, trans. 2002. A Tale of an Infatuated Woman (by Furong Zhuren). Renditions 58: 47–97. ———. 2003. Zhaojun’s Dream (by Xue Dan). Renditions 59/60: 154–180. ———. 2004. Quilts and Quivers: Dis/covering Male Homoeroticism in Late Imperial China. Tamkang Review 35 (1): 119–167. ———. 2008. Notes on Flower Appreciation in the Phoenix City (by Xiangxi Yuyin). Renditions 69: 34–61. ———, eds. and trans. 2013. Homoeroticism in Imperial China: A Sourcebook. Abingdon: Routledge. Sukhu, Gopal, and Patrick Hanan, trans. 1990. A Male Mencius’s Mother Raises her Son Properly by Moving House Three Times. In Silent Operas, ed. Patrick Hanan, 99–134. Hong Kong: Renditions Paperbacks. Trzeciak Huss, Joanna. 2018. Collaborative Translation. In The Routledge Handbook of Literary Translation, ed. Kelly Washbourne and Ben Van Wyke, 389–405. Abingdon: Routledge. Tymoczko, Maria. 1999. Translation in a Postcolonial Context: Early Irish Literature in English Translation. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing. Wei Shu-Chu. 1990. English Renaissance Acting: With Reference to Peking Opera. In Studies in Chinese-Western Comparative Drama, ed. Yun-tong Luk, 115–134. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. Wu Cuncun. 1999. Ming-Qing shehui xing’ai fengqi [Sex and Sensibility in Ming and Qing society]. Beijing: Renmin wenxue. ———. 2004. Homoerotic Sensibilities in Late Imperial China. London: Routledge. ———. 2017. Xi wai zhi xi: Qing zhongwanqi Jingcheng de xiyuan wenhua yu Liyuan siyuzhi [Drama Beyond the Drama: The Private Apartment System and Beijing Theatre Culture, 17901911). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Wu Cuncun, and Mark Stevenson. 2006. Male Love Lost: The Fate of Male Same-Sex Prostitution in Beijing in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. In Embodied Modernities: Corporeality, Representation and Chinese Cultures, ed. Fran Martin and Larissa Heinrich, 42–59. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Wu Cuncun, and Mark Stevenson. 2011. Karmic Retribution and Moral Didacticism in Erotic Fiction from the Late Ming and Early Qing. Ming Qing Studies 2011: 467–486. Zhang Cixi, ed. 1988. Qingdai Yandu liyuan shiliao zhengxubian [Historical Materials on Opera Circles of the Capital in the Qing Dynasty, and Supplement]. Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe.

Mark Stevenson is adjunct associate professor in the Department of Anthropology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. As well as researching aspects of gender and sexuality in Chinese literature, he has spent many years documenting changes in the visual culture of Tibetan communities in Qinghai province. His publications include Many Paths: Searching for Old Tibet in New China (2005), Homoeroticism in Imperial China: A Sourcebook (with Wu Cuncun, 2013), and Wanton Women in Late-Imperial Chinese Literature: Models, Genres, Subversions and Traditions (edited with Wu Cuncun, 2017).

Translating Song Yu’s Jiu Bian: Phases of Appreciative Perception Nicholas Morrow Williams

Abstract The poem “Jiu bian” 九辯 (Nine phases) in the Chuci 楚辭 (Elegies of Chu) is an influential and much-cited work of the Chinese literary tradition, but poses a special challenge for Western readers. It is attributed to a shadowy figure named Song Yu 宋玉 whose lacuna of a biography provides no useful context for reading it, so it is hard to identify the motives behind it or describe its original reception. Moreover, the poem is loosely structured and it is hard to identify any clear narrative arc, while at the level of individual lines it is frequently obscure, aside from a few brilliant passages at the beginning. Yet reading the entire poem as a whole, it is possible to make sense of it and appreciate its subtle communication of deep emotions, even if it appears incoherent by some objective criteria. The author of a new translation of the entire anthology discusses the process of translating the piece, and how he came better to appreciate its meaning in a series of stages. Like the long, repetitive, and circular poem itself, the process of translation is a process that requires multiple attempts, each of which is incomplete and yet provides a new glimpse of the work as a whole. Keywords Chuci (Elegies of Chu) · Ancient Chinese poetry · Poetry translation · Literary hermeneutics · Philology Discussions of literary translation often fixate on the challenge of communicating the distinct qualities of the source text: whether to privilege form, or content, or specific dimensions of the content, in the effort to be faithful to what is essential in the source. But the terms of this theoretical discussion tend to assume that we have first identified which qualities in the source really are worthy of translating faithfully, not to mention whether the text is worth translating at all. It is one thing to discuss how best to represent the different personalities in Hamlet, the terza rima of Dante, or the color schemes in Story of a Stone, but in practice, we more often face works whose value is contested or whose meaning is unclear. In this situation, the role of N. M. Williams (B) Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Qi and S. Tobias (eds.), Encountering China’s Past, New Frontiers in Translation Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0648-0_14

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translation is not so much to balance competing values as to elucidate which values actually are at stake in interpreting the text, both today and in the past. In looking at translation this way—as a process of discovery rather than an attempt to mirror an original already known––I am inspired by After Babel by the late George Steiner, a study which regards translation as an encounter between minds, one that is frequently violent and always transformative. Steiner insists over and over that we must look beyond the technical challenges of translation and think also about the deeper issues at stake, from the question of authorial style to the identities of languages and nations themselves. The translator of classical Chinese confronts so many snags and hurdles at the basic level of vocabulary and syntax that it is easy to be distracted from these abstract considerations. Yet some works cannot simply be translated one line at a time, but force the reader to find some comprehensive interpretation too. Many Chinese poems, in particular, force the translator to identify a subject who is never named, or to imagine a context which is not identified in words. The poems in the ancient anthology Chuci 楚辭 (Elegies of Chu) present numerous interpretive challenges of this kind. The “Li sao” 離騷 of Qu Yuan 屈原 famously shifts among mythological, romantic, religious, and political domains, forcing the translator to provide some account of the relations among these different fields of discourse. The less-appreciated poem “Jiu bian” 九辯 (Nine phases) poses different but equally substantial challenges. On one hand, this is one of the poems in the anthology that has been most influential for later writers. It opens with the famous topos of autumn sadness which has been alluded to and reinterpreted endlessly, notably by Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修 (1007–1072) in his “Fu on the Sound of Autumn” 秋聲賦. “Jiu bian” was traditionally accorded a key position within the anthology. The extant versions of the Chuci zhangju 楚辭章句 anthology place it eighth, after various pieces attributed to Qu Yuan. But there was an entirely different version of the anthology known as the Chuci shiwen 楚辭釋文, which may have dated to the Tang, and so pre-dated the Song reconfiguration of the Chuci zhangju . This Chuci shiwen keeps the “Li sao” first but places the “Jiu bian” second, before the other poems attributed to Qu Yuan.1 “Jiu bian” is attributed not to Qu Yuan but to the nebulous Song Yu 宋玉, who lacks any kind of life story or legend besides the bare assertion that he was a follower of Qu Yuan’s. The poem itself lacks the inspiring heroism of the “Li sao,” and in some sections degenerates into tedious self-pity. Moreover, though some individual lines are celebrated, it is harder to find dedicated fans of the poem as a whole, or even dedicated studies of it. Some late imperial and modern editions of the Chuci have even excluded any poems not attributed to Qu Yuan, and hence omitted “Jiu bian” altogether.2

1

For a detailed account of the Chuci shiwen and the significance of this alternative arrangement, see Chan (1998). 2 This paper is based on my translation of the entire Elegies of Chu (Chuci 楚辭) anthology, which is forthcoming from Oxford World’s Classics.

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Even the word bian 辯 in the title of this piece, “Jiu bian,” is ambiguous. It has a political meaning of “argument, suasion,” which would be appropriate for other pieces in the Elegies intended to persuade the sovereign, but not so much for this one, whose primary mode is one of resignation and melancholy. Moreover, the term is a fraught one because the title of this piece is also known as an ancient musical air from the Xia dynasty.3 Finally, since it is also closely related to the word bian meaning “transformation,” I render it here “phase” in accordance with its simple sense of change, iteration, but also with connotations of gradual revelation. The iterations of the song are meant to bring to light a state of affairs, not least the internal psychological state of the poet himself. One important implication of its title is that this piece, unlike the “Li sao,” was from the beginning intended for performance at court. While the “Li sao” is presented as the voices of men estranged from the center and removed from court, “Nine Phases” ends with a resounding assertion of confidence and love for the sovereign. Thus its apparent similarity to the “Li sao” is deceptive. Rather than reading “Jiu bian” alongside the “Li sao,” in fact, we might be better off seeing it as an early example of China’s “eulogistic tradition.”4 That is, even though most of its content seems consistent with Qu Yuan’s protest in the “Li sao,” it is ultimately presented as a form of homage to the sovereign. The hero’s suffering and complaints culminate with his vow to return to a position of intimacy at court, more or less the opposite of the dénouement in “Li sao.”5 “Jiu bian” is one of just two poems in the Chuci attributed to Song Yu, the other being the utterly different “Summons to the Soul” 招魂. Since we know so little of Song Yu’s biography, there is little to say about how it might or might not be reflected in the poem, except that the identity of the protagonist here does seem to distinguish him from Qu Yuan. The speaker is not a nobleman able to speak of the ruler on equal terms, but instead emphasizes his miserable, pathetic state.6 In that sense, the E.g., Huang Wenhuan’s 黃文煥 (1598–1667) Chuci tingzhi 楚辭聽直, or in modern times Jiang Liangfu’s 姜亮夫 Qu Yuan fu jiaozhu 屈原賦校注. 3 As in “Li sao,” line 145, and “Heavenly Questions” #34, information further corroborated by the Classic of Mountains and Seas: “Beyond the southwestern seas, south of the Cinnabar River, west of the Drifting Sands, there is a man who suspends from his ears two green snakes, and rides upon two dragons. His name is Xiahou Kai [taboo variant of Qi 啟]. Kai thrice went to offer brides to Heaven, came back down with the ‘Nine Phases’ and ‘Nine Songs.’ This is the field of Tianmu, which is two thousand miles high, and it was there that Kai first began to sing the ‘Nine Summons.’” 西南海之外, 赤水之南, 流沙之西, 有人珥兩青蛇, 乘兩龍, 名曰夏后開 。開上三嬪于天, 得九辯與九歌以下 。此天穆之野, 高二千仞, 開焉得始歌九招. See Yuan (2013, 16.349). 4 Here I borrow the terminology of Chan Chok Meng 陳竹茗 in his studies of the song 頌 genre. 5 Though there is an ambiguity there in the term “Peng Xian” 彭咸, which probably refers originally to transcendence, but at some point takes on a simultaneous reference to suicide by drowning (Williams 2018b). 6 There is also an alternative view that this piece is due to Qu Yuan. Cao Zhi quoted lines 231–32 from the poem, attributing them to Qu Ping (see Zhao 1984, 3.446). But this is best understood as a natural consequence of an inherent tendency for all kinds of compositions to gravitate toward attribution to the most prominent author available. See also Li Zhi’s perceptive criticisms (Li 2005, 135–36).

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“Nine Phases” presents us with the mirror image of the “Li sao,” a domesticated version that would form a more suitable model for praise poetry and court entertainment. One is centrifugal, tending toward exile, resistance, and transcendence; the other is centripetal, tending toward return, submission, and political harmony. These two dimensions of early Chinese literature––praise and submission, resistance and protest––are closely implicated with one another, of course, and there are many echoes of “Li sao” in “Jiu bian,” but the significance of these echoes is diminished by their contrasting conclusions. More importantly than external factors of authorship or even of content, one reason the “Jiu bian” resists a simple interpretation is that its overall organization is so amorphous, with transitions and digressions often unclear, particularly toward the end of the poem. It is possible that it has been compiled from a set of shorter texts. Nonetheless, modern scholarship has reached considerable agreement on the internal structure of the poem. Following the clue in its title, it is commonly divided into nine sections, or nine sections plus a single epilogue or “envoi” in the manner of the “Li sao,” which concludes with a luan 亂. There are clues to where the divisions should come in the changes of the rhyme scheme and also in the imagery and content. In my translation, I divide the text into nine sections plus an envoi, following the specific divisions made by Liu Yongji 劉永濟 (1887–1966).7 In the remainder of this paper, I present my translation in phases, introducing each of these sections and also some smaller units within them, trying to introduce the text in tandem with some of the challenges of translating it. In doing so, I attempt to draw inspiration from the original structure of the piece. Even before beginning to read the poem, we already face two basic challenges, the title of the piece and whether or not one chooses to divide it into sections. There is no way to decide either question prior to reading the piece, and indeed just reading once or twice may not provide much insight into either question. Instead, it is only possible to make these initial decisions after reaching a solid interpretation of the poem as a whole. So these apparently basic features turn out to require profound understanding of what the poem is about. This is just one example of how reading a challenging text must occur within the hermeneutic circle. But what is different about translation is that it forces one to be more explicit about many of these choices. Translation by its very nature is an explicitly self-conscious kind of reading which may be particularly suitable to the circular, self-referential form of the Chuci poems (Williams 2018a). The poem opens with the reflection on autumn that has inspired thousands of imitators and bears ready comparison to the “soft-dying day” of Keats’ “Ode to Autumn”.

7

And affirmed by modern scholar Wang Chia-hsin, who has an expert analysis of all the previous divisions made by previous scholars in Wang (1986, 43–57). Liu Yongji in Qu fu tongjian had the useful insight of breaking up the ninth section of Hong Xingzu’s division, which was excessively long (Liu 2010).

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1 Autumn Meditation

5

悲哉秋之為氣也

Alas! How sorrowful is the breath of autumn:

蕭瑟兮草木搖落而變衰

How desolate its sigh! – which makes grasses and trees shed their leaves and die.

憭慄兮若在遠行

We are disconsolate and doleful – as if traveling afar,

登山臨水兮送將歸

As gazing upon rivers from a mountaintop – or saying a goodbye.

泬寥兮天高而氣瀞

In the measureless vastness – of heaven above, the air is pristine;

寂寥兮收潦而水清

Silent and unperturbed – the floods recede and the waters are clear.

This opening passage, while not entirely coherent, is clearly the work of an ambitious poet. He sets forth the universal condition of human life enduring the sufferings, separations, fadings, and disappointments of the autumn season, yet also makes a skillful transition to specific experiences: “as if traveling afar.” Meanwhile, the author varies the meter and rhythm of the lines in an extraordinary way, employing both grammatical words like the possessive particle zhi 之 and the conjunction er 而, and also the rhythmic particle xi 兮. Though xi occurs frequently throughout the poems of the Chuci anthology, this particle tends to be used mechanically as part of the meter, so that in the “Li sao” 離騷, for instance, it occurs at the end of every other line. The opening of “Jiu bian” is a different case entirely, as xi occurs in the middle of each line, but in a relatively early position, as the third character of four of the lines and as the fifth character of line four. Though no one knows exactly how xi was pronounced in ancient times, it may indicate merely a pause or a lengthening of the previous sound, and I indicate it in my translation with an en-dash. The point is simply to mirror the variety of the rhythms. Of course, in English we also have other ways to break up a line of verse, such as an actual line break, which is necessary in some cases when these translations are printed. But it is important to represent xi with a symbol that can also be used at the end of a line, since it may occur there too, as in the next passage:

10

憯悽增欷兮

What pain and pangs redouble our sighs –

薄寒之中人

As the chill air assaults us.

愴怳懭悢兮

What trauma and trouble, how raw the regret –

去故而就新

Leaving the old to face the new.

坎廩兮貧士

A penniless gentleman I – rough and ragged,

失職而志不平

No profession and ambitions unsettled.

廓落兮羇旅而無友生

Immeasurably far – will be this friendless journey;

惆悵兮而私自憐

Swathed in sorrow – and only myself for solace.

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Here the xi particle is placed at the end of two lines, as is relatively common in Chuci verse, before returning to a position in the middle. The rhythmic variety here enlivens the verse even though the content is already no longer as immediately appealing. For in these lines the author complains about “facing the new” and also identifies himself as a “penniless gentleman.” It becomes clear that the poem we are reading is the plaint of a scholar who is dissatisfied with his own state, bewailing his own condition, but not necessarily setting forth any ideas or emotions of greater interest than that.8 One of the great challenges in dealing with traditional Chinese poetry is to avoid making certain conventions of self-presentation look too self-pitying, as in the final phrase here, “and only myself for solace,” which I have translated in a particular way so as to avoid what might also be interpreted simply “I feel pity for myself.” This kind of sentiment is expressed quite often and explicitly in the “Nine Phases” and other early Chinese poems, but without an implication of self-centeredness. This passage continues with the focus on this same lonely speaker: 15

20

燕翩翩其辭歸兮

Swallows flit and flutter as they set off for home –

蟬寂漠而無聲

Cicadas stay still and silent without a chirp.

鴈廱廱而南遊兮

The wild geese trumpet a tune as they journey south –

鵾雞啁哳而悲鳴

The demoiselle crane whistles its mournful cry.9

獨申旦而不寐兮

Alone and alert till dawn without sleeping –

哀蟋蟀之宵征

I grieve while the crickets keep busy all night.

時亹亹而過中兮

Time passes inexorably past the mean –

蹇淹留而無成

Yet I linger here still with nothing accomplished.

And yet, in the midst of what might be mere self-pity, suddenly several poetic images appear in sequence: swallows, cicadas, geese, and the demoiselle crane (kun he 鵾鶴 or kun ji 鵾雞). This last is sometimes identified as a variety of stork, but this is unlikely considering that its loud, mournful call is often mentioned, and storks are mute. By paying attention to the various significances of these aerial fauna, we see how the poet transfers his attention back away from his own miserable plight toward the natural world. This passage also contains a number of compounds, one of the major challenges of early Chinese poetry. I render pianpian 翩翩 as “flit and flutter” to suggest the active motion of the swallows. On the other hand, xinxin 亹亹 I simply translate as “passes ineluctably,” since a more elaborate alliterative rendering seems overkill. With regard to the final line here, I suspect that the long-standing view of jian 蹇 as some kind of exclamatory particle deserves rethinking, since the only evidence 8

This is one point where I differ from Li Zhi in his study Chuci yu zhonggu wenxian kaoshuo. Li argues that all the poems in the Chuci anthology are written in the voice of Qu Yuan, but I see this piece and some later ones as being more in the voice of an admirer of Qu Yuan, a lesser figure who lacks the aristocratic authority and the righteous independence of a Qu Yuan. 9 The geese call out harmoniously in Songs 34/3: “On one note the wild-geese cry, / A cloudless dawn begins to break. / A knight that brings home his bride / Must do so before the ice melts.”

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is the ex cathedra assertion in the Wang Yi commentary (Hong 1983, 2.58). Jian may be equally well understood as maintaining its normal sense of “hobbled,” “thwarted.” In other words, even though one always must pay respect to the early commentaries, and try to understand how scholars of the past have approached these texts, poems also have their own integrity of image and line that deserves to be respected also. In this last passage, the poet seemed to be settling into a more conventional rhythm, so the next line, marking a new section of the poem, comes as a shock, which needs to be translated literally to preserve the sequence of four adjectives.

2 Longing for the Sovereign

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悲憂窮戚兮獨處廓

Mournful, afflicted, fearful, distraught – I abide alone in the world;

有美一人兮心不繹

Yet there is a beauty – from whom my longings are inseparable.

去鄉離家兮徠遠客

Departing my land and leaving my domain – a traveler venturing afar,

超逍遙兮今焉薄

Even further I roam and wander – no destination now.

The remainder of this quatrain is rehashing the Qu Yuan story and the content of the “Li sao”: an exiled scholar, longing for his king (represented obliquely as a “beautiful person” 美人 either male or female). Qu Yuan was said to be estranged from his king and ultimately exiled to the southern lands beyond the borders of Chu. But of Song Yu no such legend remains, and no concrete story of political conflict or estrangement is related in this text. Instead we are left with an amorphous kind of sorrow. But this is why the opening line of this section is critical. This line delves into the protagonist’s downcast state of mind with its astonishing sequence of adjectives bei you qiong qi 悲憂窮戚. I am careful in my translation to render each of these as a separate word: “Mournful, afflicted, fearful, distraught.” While adjectives like bei 悲 may need to be rendered in various ways depending on context, it is always essential to try to convey some of the relative distinctions within this particular line. So, for example, bei might be synonymous in some circumstances with qi 戚, here it has to be taken in a contrastive sense, as reflecting yet another level of worry within the protagonist’s mind. After all, while this poem lacks the external drama of the “Li sao,” it substitutes internal psychological drama for any events to speak of. We do not really know exactly why the speaker is supposed to be so despair-struck, but we are not meant to, only to follow him along an interior trajectory for which purpose the distinctions between worry and grief are paramount.

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專思君兮不可化 君不知兮可柰何 蓄怨兮積思 30

Brooding in resentment – ever more pensive, My heart anxious and unquiet – I forget even to eat.

願一見兮道余意

I wish only to see him once – to tell of my intent.

車既駕兮朅而歸 不得見兮心傷悲

But the heart of my liege – is not in accord with mine. My carriage now readied – I set off back homewards. Because I cannot meet him – my heart is wracked by worry.

倚結軨兮長太息

Leaning upon the carriage-rail – I heave a deep sigh.

涕潺湲兮下霑軾

My tears pour down in torrents – drenching the crossbar.

忼慨絕兮不得 中瞀亂兮迷惑 40

In his uncomprehending state – what is to be done?

心煩憺兮忘食事 君之心兮與余異

35

For my liege only am I longing – but I cannot change him;

Utterly depressed and dejected – I find no success, My mind is clouded in chaos –lost in confusion.

私自憐兮何極

Lamenting my own plight – without limit,

心怦怦兮諒直

Though my thoughts are in turmoil – yet I am true and incorrupt.

Line 39 here, “Lamenting my own plight – with no limit,” looks simple but has cost me far more effort and time in translation than any other in this poem. The poet has complained that he is not appreciated by the sovereign, and has told us he is drenched with tears and heaving great sighs. And after all that he concludes that he is zilian 自憐, which could potentially be translated as “self-pitying.” But what kind of hero presents himself as self-pitying? To make such an assertion would be to disclaim any chance of readerly sympathy when the poem has only barely begun. Looking at the context, though, we may suspect that he does not mean to make the passive observation that he pities his own state (of which the reader is indeed fully aware already), but rather to assert that he is trying, in spite of his suffering, to comfort himself. For after all “pity” is only one sense of lian. “Pity” in English is by default other-directed; when we describe somebody as “self-pitying” we mean to identify a misapplication of the emotion. So I ended up rendering lian as “lament,” in accordance with its gloss in the Han dictionary Shuowen 說文 as ai 哀. Though Song Yu may still strike the reader as being self-pitying, at least he is not explicitly confessing to being so, but instead is reacting naturally to his own situation. Even if my translation manages to convey the sense without getting maudlin, still this wave of introspection is overwhelming, so it is something of a relief to return to the seasonal theme in the next section. As ever, dividing up the poem into nine sections helps to highlight the passages that open each section, and so make a narrative line apparent to the reader.

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3 Grieving for the Seasons

45

皇天平分四時兮

The four seasons were set apart by might Heaven –

竊獨悲此廩秋

But I grieve especially in the chill of Autumn.

白露既下百草兮

Bright dew has fallen on the hundred grasses –

奄離披此梧楸

While mallotus and parasol trees wither.

去白日之昭昭兮

Departing the refulgent splendor of the bright sun –

襲長夜之悠悠

I enter the endless dark of the long night.

離芳藹之方壯兮

Relinquishing the fragrant foliage at its bloom –

余萎約而悲愁

Wasted and wan, I pine and fret.

As mentioned above, the structure of the whole poem is highly irregular. Apart from the metrical issues already mentioned above, there is also the question of the rhyme scheme. Like most Chinese poems, the “Nine Phases” employs end-rhyme on alternate lines. But the rhymes employed do not change at regular intervals. For instance, the “Li sao” has a regular rhyme scheme dividing the poem up into neat quatrains. But in the “Nine Phases” the lengths of continuously rhyming passages vary widely, from six or eight lines to several dozens. In my translation, I generally attempt to mark a change with a line break. Here the rhyme changes after line 48, and the new rhyme in -ang continues all the way through line 84 in the next section. Whether these formal features are just haphazard or have deeper significance is arguable, but it is worth paying attention to them for clues to the meaning of the larger poem. In this case, the extended rhyming passage here marks the beginning of a new rumination on the author’s state.

50

55

60

秋既先戒以白露兮

Autumn’s premonition in the bright dew –

冬又申之以嚴霜

Winter deepened with the deadly frost,

收恢台之孟夏兮

Subduing the wanton wildness of high summer –

然欿傺而沈藏

All foiled, forestalled, receding, retreating.

葉菸邑而無色兮

The leaves wither away and have no hue at all –

枝煩挐而交橫

The bare boughs form a lattice interlocking.

顏淫溢而將罷兮

Their colors grow bold and brilliant before they fade –

柯彷彿而萎黃

Bare trunks begin to show as the leaves brown and fall.

萷櫹槮之可哀兮

How pitiable these the bare branches starkly protruding –

形銷鑠而瘀傷

There living forms desiccated and degenerating.

惟其紛糅而將落兮

Pondering that chaotic confounding of forms about to fall –

恨其失時而無當

How I regret missing the moment to find my place!

攬騑轡而下節兮

Seizing the tracer-horses’ bridle I press upon the reins –

聊逍遙以相佯

I’ll roam easy and free, dither and dally here.

歲忽忽而遒盡兮

How swiftly the years have passed, now nearing expiry – (continued)

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(continued) 65

70

恐余壽之弗將

I only fear I will not be able to fulfil my life’s span.

悼余生之不時兮

And mourn that my birth was not timely –

逢此世之俇攘

For I fell into this world of disorder and disarray.

澹容與而獨倚兮

For now I linger in tranquility, standing solitary –

蟋蟀鳴此西堂

While crickets chirp in the western palace,

心怵惕而震盪兮

Uneasy and anxious, tremulous and troubled –

何所憂之多方

How can there be so many facets to one grief?

卬明月而太息兮

Gazing up at the full moon I heave a sigh –

步列星而極明

Till dawn stroll on beneath the serried stars.

Line 70, “How can there be so many facets to one grief?” deserves special emphasis. My translation emphasizes this line with the contrast between “many” and “one,” the latter not explicit in the original, and also by saving the weighty concept of “grief” to the very end of the line. This line offers a concise summation of one consistent tendency in the classical Chinese poetic tradition, which asserts the infinitely multifarious nature of human emotion. Moreover, it is this view of poetry and life that helps to justify the design of this poem itself. The author is willing to delve into his personal complaints because of the conviction that grief is multifaceted and interrelated with a whole array of external conditions, ranging from his individual relationships to the configurations of the stars. The next section opens by employing the floral imagery so typical of the “Li sao,” but far less prominent in this poem. Like the other plants most prized by Qu Yuan, the hui 蕙 or “sweet clover” (Melilotus indicus) is distinguished above all by its alluring scent, rather than its visual appearance. The twentieth-century rendering of this term by Lin Yutang and others as a kind of orchid was highly misleading, because many varieties of orchid are scentless. Paul W. Kroll in his definitive Student’s Dictionary of Ancient and Medieval Chinese offers two alternatives for this term, both “sweet clover” and also Thai or sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum), either of which is eminently fragrant.

4 Finding the Way

75

竊悲夫蕙華之曾敷兮

How I suffer as the blossoms of sweet clover once piled high –

紛旖旎乎都房

Now are scattered and strewn in the courtly chamber.

何曾華之無實兮

Why do these many-petalled blooms bear no fruit –

從風雨而飛颺

But scatter along with the wind and the rain?

以為君獨服此蕙兮

I had thought my liege alone was adorned in sweet clover –

羌無以異於眾芳

In fact he could not tell it from another fragrance. (continued)

Translating Song Yu’s Jiu Bian: Phases …

259

(continued) 80

85

90

閔奇思之不通兮

Ruing that these strange ponderings of mine cannot be told –

將去君而高翔

Instead I will depart my lord and take flight heavenward.

心閔憐之慘悽兮

Mourning and tormented, my heart sore and sorrowful –

願一見而有明

I only wish to see him once more and make myself manifest.

重無怨而生離兮

I will have no more resentment at this parting-in-life –10

中結軫而增傷

Of inner feelings knotted up, grief ever sharper.

豈不鬱陶而思君兮

Why should I not be downcast while I long for my lord? –

君之門以九重

The gates surrounding my lord are ninefold.

猛犬狺狺而迎吠兮

Fierce hounds yelp and yowl at me, and snarl when I approach –

關梁閉而不通

The barriers and bridges are blocked and impassable.

皇天淫溢而秋霖兮

High Heaven overflows with autumn downpours –

后土何時而得漧

When will Sovereign Earth be dry again?

塊獨守此無澤兮

I alone keep solitary vigil bereft of vivifying moisture –

仰浮雲而永歎

Gazing up at the clouds drifting past I sigh without cease.

The final four lines here employ the traditional analogy between the moisture of rain and dew from Heaven and favor from the Emperor. As with the topos of autumnal sadness that opens the poem, the turn here away from interior grief to the grandness of Nature and the cosmos helps to place the speaker’s inner lament into context. Whether or not any of this reflects the truth of Song Yu’s situation—unknowable but unlikely—as a literary device it suggests the way that individuality recapitulates universality, so that by lamenting his own state, Song Yu is also demonstrating concern for the world at large. The next passage employs a number of images that were conventional in the Warring States period for an inversion of the correct hierarchy of talent. In a just society, people should follow laws as straightforward and correct as the plumb line, and the quality of the meritorious was supposed to be recognized as readily as fast horses were identified. Following the model of Qu Yuan, Song Yu refers to talented men—like himself—as the thoroughbreds and phoenixes who are supposed to be raised to positions of power in the state. So this passage is more discursive than the previous ones, discussing the state of politics and the court, even if primarily by use of metaphors. It thus marks a shift in the focus of the poem, addressing some of the basic principles underlying the poet’s plaint. In that sense, one important feature of my translation is not to translate the first line of this section as a question, even though it begins with the word he 何. In poetry, at least, many lines beginning with he are best read as rhetorical questions, and translating them literally with question punctuation may be misleading. After all, Song Yu has no interest in the motives of the vulgar and corrupt, and he claims to be familiar with the methods. So the meaning of the word he must be exclamatory, conveying his outrage at the connivances of his 10

For the contrast between a “parting in life” and a “parting by death” see “Nine Songs: Lesser Controller of Destinies,” line 13.

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enemies. Translating it this way also makes it a more effective opening to a new passage of the poem.

5 Order Inverted

95

何時俗之工巧兮

How the vulgar of this age craft their deceptions –

背繩墨而改錯

Rejecting the plumb-line rule and altering the order!11

卻騏驥而不乘兮

They decline the sterling steeds and do not ride them –

策駑駘而取路

While whipping on jade and nag to take to the road.

當世豈無騏驥兮

Could it be that our age lacks a single outstanding steed? –

誠莫之能善御

No, it is only that there is no true master of riding.

見執轡者非其人兮 100 故駶跳而遠去

I know well this rein-master is not the right man – For the fine steeds leap and bolt till they have vanished.12

鳧鴈皆唼夫粱藻兮

Mallard and goose peck at the millet and waterweeds –

鳳愈飄翔而高舉

While only the phoenix soars up ever closer to the heavens.

圜鑿而方枘兮

When tenon is rounded and mortise square –

吾固知其鉏鋙而難入 They surely mismatch and cannot be joined. 105 眾鳥皆有所登棲兮

All the species of birds have a place to climb and perch –

鳳獨遑遑而無所集

The phoenix alone searches vagabond without place to pause.

願銜枚而無言兮

I would gag myself and have no more words to speak –

嘗被君之渥洽

Though I once received the generous favor of my lord.

太公九十乃顯榮兮

Lord Tai was ninety before attaining eminence and glory –

110 誠未遇其匹合

Truly he had not yet met his match before then.

謂騏驥兮安歸

Say, oh thoroughbred racer – when will you return?

謂鳳皇兮安棲

Say, oh propitious phoenix – where can you perch?

變古易俗兮世衰

Altering tradition, changing the old ways – the world declines;

今之相者兮舉肥 115 騏驥伏匿而不見兮

The experts of today – elevate even the flabbiest of steeds! While thoroughbreds go into hiding and are not seen –

鳳皇高飛而不下

The royal phoenix flies far up high and finds no perch.

鳥獸猶知懷德兮

Even bird and beast know to cherish obligations to one another –

何云賢士之不處

Why should noble men abide with their due merit unknown?13 (continued)

11

Cf. “Li sao,” lines 89–92. The meaning of this line is slightly obscure since the subject is omitted. The Chuci zhangju commentary mentions the example of Jizi 箕子, worthy advisor to the last king of Shang, who pretended to have gone mad so as to evade persecution. 13 This couplet is making a coherent point in very compressed fashion. Even birds and beasts are well aware of the de (sometimes “virtue,” but here obligation due in response to merit or favor) owed to them. Why should a worthy vassal continue to reside at court if his merit is not recognized, 12

Translating Song Yu’s Jiu Bian: Phases …

261

(continued) 驥不驟進而求服兮 120 鳳亦不貪餧而妄食 君棄遠而不察兮

A thoroughbred does not plead for the harness to satisfy ambition – Nor does a phoenix consume carelessly to sate its gluttony. When the sovereign exiles you and does not recognize you –

雖願忠其焉得

Though you long to be loyal how can it be achieved?

欲寂漠而絕端兮

Though I aim only for silence, eschewing all acclaim –

竊不敢忘初之厚德

Yet I dare not forget the favor that I knew once.14

125 獨悲愁其傷人兮 馮鬱鬱其何極

Melancholy and grief have caused these wounds – Shrouded me in interminable gloom.

This section emphasizes the traditional rhetorical topos of the “thoroughbreds,” i.e., the wise officers of the court neglected by a foolish king. I have tried to liven the presentation of this simile, much loved by traditional poets but harder for modern automobile drivers to appreciate, with a few special turns of phrase like “I know well this rein-master is not the right man.” The discussion finally concludes by returning to the poet’s own melancholy. Again, the relentless obsession with the poet’s own condition appears tiresome, but there is a compensating dimension of self-reflection touching on the use of poetry and song. This section is embellished by references to the classic anthology, the Book of Songs, which help to ground the poet’s moral conviction in cultural heritage.

6 Abiding in Poverty

130

霜露慘悽而交下兮

Frost and dew descend on me, mingling with misery –

心尚幸其弗濟

I waver and quaver but cannot find success.15

霰雪雰糅其增加兮

Hail and snow plummet pell-mell upon me –

乃知遭命之將至

I know that I must soon meet my fate.

願徼幸而有待兮

I wish I could by compromise obtain fair treatment –

泊莽莽與壄草同死

But remaining in this waste land I’ll die among the weeds.

願自往而徑遊兮

Though I’d like to forge a path of my own –

路壅絕而不通

The roads are barricaded and impassable. (continued)

due favor not given? But the sense is hard to express within the confines of the sao meter. See Wang Fuzhi’s paraphrase for a heartfelt appreciation of this couplet (Wang 2011, 8.384). 14 In explanation of the quietude, the Chuci zhangju commentary cites the example of Ning Wu in Analects 5/21, who feigned stupidity when the country was in disorder. The word duan 端 is difficult. I have rendered it as “new trial” since “initiation” is one possible meaning. It might potentially be a loan for chuan 喘, “to gasp.” 15 I follow Huang Linggeng’s suggestion that shangxing 尚幸 is an error for changyang 徜徉. Huang (2007, 2.661).

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(continued) 135

140

欲循道而平驅兮

I hope to follow the way and to hurry along on ground –

又未知其所從

Yet I cannot tell whither it leads.

然中路而迷惑兮

When along the road I find myself deluded and astray –

自壓桉而學誦

I strive to calm myself a while by study and by song.

性愚陋以褊淺兮

Because of my simple nature I am irritable and impatient –

信未達乎從容

I can never attain calm and composure.

The difficult line 138 should perhaps be understood in light of the Book of Songs 260/8, in which the author asserts: “I, Yin Jifu, have made this song, / Solemn as the pure wind, / Though Zhongshan Fu is ever anxious, / May it ease his heart!” The content is similar and that passage uses this same term song 誦 (also “recitation,” “remonstrance,” etc.) for “song.” The profusion of subtle references to literary tradition in this poem and so many later Chinese works is a constant challenge to the translator, and yet there is not really any way to imitate this in English. If there were one definitive translation of the Book of Songs that would help, but in fact the scholarship there is divided among versions by Legge, Karlgren, and Waley (Waley’s Book of Songs being my preference on both literary and scholarly grounds). 竊美申包胥之氣盛兮

How I admire the supremely spirited Shen Baoxu –

恐時世之不固

I only fear that in this age people are not so resolute.16

何時俗之工巧兮

Why do the mass of men craft such contrivances –

滅規矩而改錯

Destroying rules and measures, and altering the order?

This is an especially effective miniature quatrain, citing a historical allusion in the first line to help establish the justification for the author’s complaint. In a way, it might be better to translate this poem in small pieces like this one, interspersed by elaborate commentary, as I am attempting to do in this very essay. One way that traditional readers often encountered poems like this was not as a continuous whole, but through partial quotation (even if duanzhang quyi 斷章取義), whether in commonplaces books and anthologies, or simply in conversation or exchange with friends showing off bits of poetry they had memorized. There is perhaps a need for more of this kind of acontextual quotation in modern scholarship. 145 獨耿介而不隨兮

I alone am loyal and upright, and not easily swayed –

願慕先聖之遺教

For I revere that teaching bequeathed by past sages.

處濁世而顯榮兮

To abide in a defiled age by earning eminence and honors –

非余心之所樂

Is no object for my heart to delight in!

與其無義而有名兮

As for lacking devotion while possessing fame – (continued)

16

Shen Baoxu was the Chu nobleman who stayed to fight for Chu when Wu Zixu departed, and later successfully pled with Qin to lend Chu support.

Translating Song Yu’s Jiu Bian: Phases …

263

(continued) 150 寧窮處而守高

I’d rather abide in poverty yet preserve my high ideals.

食不媮而為飽兮

Though I sup on insipid fare I’ll still eat my fill –

衣不苟而為溫

Though I don awkward garb I’ll still keep warm.

竊慕詩人之遺風兮

How I aspire to the manner bequeathed by the poet in the Songs –

願託志乎素餐

I vow like him to shun the “bread of idleness.”17

155 蹇充倔而無端兮

By honesty satisfied and sated, no other means at hand –

泊莽莽而無垠

I will remain in this boundless, barren land.18

無衣裘以御冬兮

But with no robe or fur to ward off the winter –

恐溘死不得見乎陽春 I fear untimely death should come before I see the springtime sun again.

This section concludes with a line of extraordinary length (nine Chinese characters). In my translation I have made some effort to translate it with a relatively long English sentence to mirror the original rhythm and highlight this line as an exceptional one in the poem: “I fear untimely death should come before I see the springtime sun again.” This extended line does not strike the Chinese reader as ponderous, to be sure, because of its forceful language with the active verb phrase bude jian 不得見 at its center. It successfully marks the conclusion of this section, which had presented personal reflections of the author. The next passage will return to considerations of time and the seasons:

7 Days Depart

靚杪秋之遙夜兮 160 心繚悷而有哀

In the stillness of the long night at autumn’s end – My heart enwrapped and wreathed in sorrow,

春秋逴逴而日高兮 Springs and autumns pass into the distance, the sun high overhead – 然惆悵而自悲

I condole myself for this disquiet and distress.

四時遞來而卒歲兮 The four seasons pass in succession and the year comes to an end – 陰陽不可與儷偕

Yin and Yang cannot be shared simultaneously.

165 白日晼晚其將入兮 The sun has dimmed to dusk and soon will set – (continued) 17

Songs 112/1 says that a noble man does not enjoy the “bread of idleness,” meaning that he does not consume the crops produced by workers without laboring himself: “If you did not hunt, if you did not chase, / One would not see all those badgers hanging in your courtyard. / No, indeed, that lord / Does not feed on the bread of idleness.” (Waley 1996, 87). 18 Hong Xingzu cites the Book of Rites: “The scholar is not cast down, or cut from his root, by poverty and mean condition; he is not satisfied or sated by riches and noble condition” (modified from Legge 1885, 2:409). Though other scholars have questioned this parallel, the general sense of the Rites quotation is particularly apt to the context of “Nine Phases.”

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(continued) 明月銷鑠而減毀

The moonlight wanes steadily until it ceases.

歲忽忽而遒盡兮

The year now passes precipitously on towards its end –

老冉冉而愈

Old age encroaches steadily, decay extends its sway.19

心搖悅而日幸兮

My heart was stirred to delight enjoying ever-greater favor –20

170 然怊悵而無冀 中憯惻之悽愴兮

But now I am steeped in melancholy and despair. My inner self wrung and wrenched with gloom and woe –

長太息而增欷

I weep for my state and heave another sigh.

年洋洋以日往兮

The years accumulate past numbering as the days depart –

老嵺廓而無處

While old age looms vast upon me I cannot rest.

175 事亹亹而覬進兮 蹇淹留而躊躇

As all things shift ineluctably, I long to advance – But instead must linger and languish here, halting in hesitation.

In general, the translator of Chinese literature is forced to neglect many features of the original text which have no equivalent in English. A conspicuous example is the aesthetic value of certain Chinese characters themselves. Rhyme poses the same challenges as in any literary translation—since English is rhyme-poor, a rhyming translation normally would force the translator to warp the original text in various other ways, which can be worthwhile but often is not. Yet early Chinese poetry possesses one feature which is quite straightforward to replicate in English. This is the use of rhyming or alliterative compounds like chouchu 躊躇, which concludes this section and can be rendered quite faithfully as “hesitating and halting.” The next passage forms a powerful miniature monologue in which the poet considers how to reach the attentions of the king in spite of the “clouds” (presumably his slanderous rivals) seeking to block him.

8 Hoping for an Audience

180

何氾濫之浮雲兮

How they surge and swell, the clouds above! –

猋壅蔽此明月

Rushing forward to block and obscure the bright moon;

忠昭昭而願見兮

By right of my loyalty’s pure radiance, I deserve an audience –

然霠曀而莫達

But through this murk and miasma I have no way to pass.

願皓日之顯行兮

I wish that the sun could shine forth in glory –

雲蒙蒙而蔽之

But the clouds, dimming and darkening, obscure it.

竊不自聊而願忠兮

Truly I cannot dally here but long to be loyal to my lord – (continued)

19

The first hemistich of line 168 is the same as that of line 63 above, an interesting use of formulaic language. Cf. stanza 14 of “Heavenly Questions” for the usage of chi . 20 He Jianxun suggests that yaoyue 搖悅 is just a graphic variant for yuyue 愉悅 (He 1994, 289).

Translating Song Yu’s Jiu Bian: Phases …

265

(continued) 185

190

195

200

205

210

或黕點而汙之

Yet other men with pollution and corruption besmirch him.

堯舜之抗行兮

The upright deeds of sages Yao and Shun –

瞭冥冥而薄天

Illuminate the void and vastness all the way to Heaven.

何險巇之嫉妒兮

How severe and steep must have been men’s jealousy –

被以不慈之偽名

To slander even sages with lacking parental virtue.

彼日月之照明兮

Sun and moon shine brilliantly now –

尚黯黮而有瑕

But once dimmed and darkened, flaws become apparent.

何況一國之事兮

How much worse for the affairs of a single state –

亦多端而膠加

Now sundered into many by rift and rupture.

被荷裯之晏晏兮

They wear lotus jackets that are richly resplendent–

然潢洋而不可帶

But billowing out broadly, cannot be belted back.21

既驕美而伐武兮

He prides himself in glorious mien and also martial courage –

負左右之耿介

But frustrates his advisors who were noble and upright.

憎慍惀之脩美兮

He detests, resents, condemns the virtuous and fine –

好夫人之慷慨

And prefers servants of passionate intensity.

眾踥蹀而日進兮

The many trudging drudge-like are promoted further –

美超遠而逾邁

While worthy men are far removed and face demise.22

農夫輟耕而容與兮

The peasants cease their ploughing and dally in pleasure –

恐田野之蕪穢

But I fear that the farm crops will wither and rot.

事綿綿而多私兮

As controversies grow numberless and selfishness is rife –

竊悼後之危敗

I must grieve for the perils and the ruin to come.

世雷同而炫曜兮

Though all in the world are indistinguishable in their boasting –

何毀譽之昧昧

They are blind to the difference between fame and ignominy.

今脩飾而窺鏡兮

Now I refine my dress and peer into the mirror –

後尚可以竄藏

For the future how could I seclude and conceal myself?

願寄言夫流星兮

I’d like to send a message with a shooting star –

羌儵忽而難當

For all passes in a moment’s flash and I lose the pace.

卒壅蔽此浮雲兮

Finally blocked and barred by the drifting clouds –

下暗漠而無光

All below is a murky maelstrom without light.

Finally, the hero garners sustenance from the models of antiquity, and finds himself able to trust that his virtue will ultimately be rewarded:

21

Cf. Qu Yuan’s lotus garb in “Li sao,” line 113. My interpretation of this line follows Wang Fuzhi (Wang 2011, 8.392). 22 These four lines also occur in “Nine Avowals: Lamenting Ying,” lines 57–60.

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9 Reflecting on Antiquity 堯舜皆有所舉任兮 215

220

225

230

235

240

Yao and Shun could elevate the talented in every case –

故高枕而自適

Reclining upon a pillow they succeeded by spontaneity.

諒無怨於天下兮

Truly they were not resented by anyone under Heaven –

心焉取此怵惕

At heart they had no need to cavil or take caution.

乘騏驥之瀏瀏兮

Just so on a thoroughbred racer prancing and pacing –

馭安用夫強策

The driver need not ever apply a heavy whip.

諒城郭之不足恃兮

Truly walls and ramparts cannot be relied on –

雖重介之何益

Even weighty armor bears little benefit.23

邅翼翼而無終兮

Though I bend in deference and duty, I have no destination –

忳惛惛而愁約

But wallow in misery, wretched and woeful.

生天地之若過兮

A man lives between heaven and earth like a wayfarer –

功不成而無效

If his task is not accomplished then all is for naught.

願沈滯而不見兮

I’d rather sink into isolation with no audience at court –

尚欲布名乎天下

But still spread my name throughout the realm.

然潢洋而不遇兮

In all this tumult and transformation I cannot find a patron –

直怐愚而自苦

But flounder foolishly and further trouble myself.

莽洋洋而無極兮

In this vast universe that extends to the infinite –

忽翱翔之焉薄

Swiftly I soar upwards but towards what end?

國有驥而不知乘兮

In this kingdom there are fine steeds but no one expert at riding –

焉皇皇而更索

So why fret and frown about searching once again?

甯戚謳於車下兮

Ning Qi sang a ditty beneath the king’s carriage –

桓公聞而知之

Duke Huan of Qi heard and recognized him.24

無伯樂之善相兮

Without a master like Bole to recognize talent –

今誰使乎譽之

Who today could employ or praise men of their ilk?

罔流涕以聊慮兮

Distraught, my tears stream down in worry and woe –

惟著意而得之

I can only fix my resolve to find success:

紛純純之願忠兮

Abundant in earnest sincerity I aim to be loyal –

妒被離而鄣之

But jealousy runs rampant and prevents me.

Like the previous divisions into sections, this final one is not marked in the Chinese text. But modern scholars have suggested it makes sense to mark a division here, as noted above, and since this is the final one, I have taken advantage of the translator’s privilege and identified it as an “Envoi” to the poem as a whole. Other poems in the Chuci anthology frequently conclude with a special section at the end entitled luan 亂, so it makes sense to understand the conclusion of this poem in that way as well. 23

Because only a ruler who has the confidence of his advisors and the people will succeed, regardless of his military might. 24 Cf. “Li sao,” lines 295–96.

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10 Envoi 願賜不肖之軀而別離兮

245

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255

I would fain give my unworthy body up and depart –

放遊志乎雲中

Letting my thoughts float free amid the clouds.

乘精氣之摶摶兮

Riding on the spiraling swirlings of the vital pneuma –

騖諸神之湛湛

I will chase the close configurations of the sky spirits;

驂白霓之習習兮

Will drive the rippling revolutions of the silvery coronas –

歷群靈之豐豐

Pass over the sundry spirits mustering en masse.

左朱雀之茇茇兮

To the left the Vermilion Bird wafts winging by –

右蒼龍之躣躣

To right the Azure Dragon creeps uncoiling past.25

屬雷師之闐闐兮

I dispatch the booming bolts of the Master of the Thunder –

通飛廉之衙衙

Guide forward the whirring whirlwinds of Flying Lian.

前輊輬之鏘鏘兮

Ahead of me the coaches and carriages jingle-jangle –

後輜乘之從從

Behind is the luggage train trundling slowly along,

載雲旗之委蛇兮

Bearing cloud pennants that curve and coil –

扈屯騎之容容

With cavalry guard fanning out far behind.

計專專之不可化兮

My design is of true devotion and will not alter –

願遂推而為臧

Merely to advance at last and achieve some merit.

賴皇天之厚德兮

Relying on mighty Heaven’s generous blessings –

還及君之無恙

May his majesty be preserved ever unharmed.

The envoi of “Nine Phases” had always struck me as a non sequitur before I translated the poem in its entirety. After so many passages lamenting the poet’s isolation, complaining about his abandonment by the king, describing his own hapless loafing about in misery, why does he suddenly imagine himself flying through the heavens and then reassert his own loyalty to the state? Surely the poem ought to end, like the “Li sao,” with a dramatic statement of the poet’s determination to be loyal to his own convictions even if they lead him to reject his homeland altogether. But here it is useful to reflect on the content of the poem as a whole, divided up into the various psychological phases that we have seen above. The poem can be seen as describing a sequence of different attitudes toward the loyal courtier’s betrayal and rejection by the ruler. The poet starts out by reflecting on autumnal melancholy itself. He is writing in the season of sadness and separation, and this leads him naturally to think of his own causes for melancholy. In the second phase, he thus asserts his own profound loneliness and longing for the sovereign. And yet, in the third phase, he manages to locate his own grief in the autumnal context, recognizing, at least at

25

The Vermilion Bird is the symbolic deity of the south, and the Azure Dragon of the east. This passage represents the triumphant procession of the hero and his attendants, recapitulating the cosmic journey in the “Li sao” in miniature, until at the end the hero turns back toward home, duty, and king.

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this stage, that it is not after all just his own solitary grief, but part of a larger context, the poet’s misfortune to be born in “this world of disorder and disarray.” On this introspective basis, having examined the many facets of his own grief, the poet continues on to imagine a journey away from his own homeland, in the manner of Qu Yuan. He compares himself to the clouds drifting past, a homeless refugee without destination. It is this threat of dislocation, perhaps, that inspires the fifth phase, in which the poet again attempts to place his own personal suffering in a broader context. In this case, though, he reaches to moral principles. The talented man, like the thoroughbred horse or the phoenix, deserves recognition and appreciation, and a platform to make use of its own manifests talents. He cites the famous advisor to King Wu of Zhou, Lord Tai 太 or Lü Shang 呂尚, who only achieved a position of power in his old age. Perhaps there is hope after all. In the sixth phase, the poet cites the evidence of the Book of Songs and vows not to consume “the bread of idleness.” Instead, it seems, he aims to make his mark while he is still young. The seventh phase focuses on the passage of time, reminding us of the urgency of action. And in the eighth phase, the poet begins seriously to consider the possibility of serving his lord again, repeating his desire to achieve an audience in person, and taking care to adjust his own appearance while examining a mirror. In other words, he has turned about-face entirely away from the inner distress of the earlier phases, and has realized that he needs to cultivate his own mental and physical state so as to be of service to the lord. If “Nine Phases” were an epic poem, it might conclude with some heroic deed such as the poet casting out the sycophants from court. Instead, the ninth phase reverts to historical references, ranging from the sage rulers Yao and Shun to the heroic advisor Ning Qi, whose virtue was appreciated only when Duke Huan happened to hear him singing a tune beneath his carriage. In spite of all the challenges, these historical precedents give the poet hope that he may still be able to serve the king loyally. And so in the final “Envoi,” he goes into a kind of reverie, imagining himself on a flight through the heavens, like Qu Yuan before him. In the “Li sao,” the flight through the heavens is simultaneously religious and allegorical. It reflects the shamanistic religious practices of Warring States Chu, in which shamans would actually send their souls off in flight to commune with spirits; but it must also be read allegorically as suggesting the hero’s political dilemma and willingness to look for alternative patrons and allies. Here the celestial journey is compressed into a mere dozen lines and has a totally different effect. It is something like the dream that restores a sharper perception of reality upon waking. For, in the end, the poet realizes that his hope lies only in service to the king, and he concludes with a wish for his sovereign’s health. What it has taken me this process of reading, interpretation, and translation to realize is that this conclusion is more profound than it at first appears. With the benefit of post-1911 hindsight, it is easy for us to sympathize with the rebellious voice of a Qu Yuan and its suggestion of potential liberation. But Song Yu’s lament is revealing enough in its own way. After all, neither he nor Qu Yuan was a revolutionary by any stretch of the imagination; their poems are not about establishing new societies, but about the psychological, political, historiographical, and philosophical dilemmas that one confronts in trying to endure and work in an imperfect society. They come

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to different conclusions, but Song Yu’s is not wrong,; for most of us, most of the time, it is surely better to conform to the pressures of our time, attempting to live out our higher principles only in a modest way, within the limits of convention and the demands of political authority. In light of this conclusion, the “Nine Phases” is a remarkable achievement, showing us the process by which concentrated thought and entangled emotions, over the course of several hundred lines of poetry, result in a key personal decision. The decision of this imagined courtier would have been insignificant in the grand scheme of history, yet it was momentous to the person concerned. In some sense, such a poem devoted to the subtle transitions of a single consciousness cannot be analyzed objectively but only read line by line, experienced gradually in its multiple stages of sentiment and deliberation. Or perhaps, it cannot be read at all today, but only translated.

References Chan, Timothy W. K. 1998. The Jing/zhuan Structure of the Chuci Anthology: A New Approach to the Authorship of Some of the Poems. T’oung Pao 84: 293–327. He Jianxun 何劍燻. 1994. Chuci xingu 楚辭新詁. Chengdu: Ba Shu shushe. Hong Xingzu 洪興祖 (1090–1155), ed. 1983. Chuci buzhu 楚辭補注. Originally compiled by Wang Yi 王逸 (fl. 114–120). Punctuated by Bai Huawen 白化文 et al. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. Huang Linggeng 黃靈庚, ed. 2007. Chuci zhangju shuzheng 楚辭章句疏證. Originally compiled by Wang Yi 王逸 (fl. 114–120). Ordering based on the anonymous Chuci shiwen 楚辭釋文. Five volumes. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. Legge, James. 1885. The Lî Kî. In two volumes. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Li Zhi 力之 (Liu Hanzhong 劉漢忠). 2005. Chuci yu zhonggu wenxian kaoshuo 《楚辭》與中古文獻考說. Chengdu: Ba Shu shushe. Liu Yongji 劉永濟 (1887–1966). 2010. Qu Fu tongjian 屈賦通箋. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. Waley, Arthur. 1996. The Book of Songs: The Ancient Chinese Classic of Poetry, ed. with additional trans. Joseph R. Allen. New York: Grove Press. Wang Chia-hsin 王家歆. 1986. Jiubian yanjiu 九辯研究. Taipei: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan. Wang Fuzhi 王夫之 (1619–1692). 2011. Chuci tongshi 楚辭通釋. In Chuanshan quanshu 船山全書, vol. 14. Changsha: Yuelu shushe. Williams, Nicholas Morrow. 2018a. Tropes of Entanglement and Strange Loops in the ‘Nine Avowals’ of the Chuci. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 81 (2): 277–300. ———. 2018b. ‘Roaming the Infinite’: Liu Xiang as Chuci Reader and Would-be Transcendent. Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Literature 20: 49–112. Yuan Ke 袁珂. 2013. Shanhaijing jiaozhu 山海經校注. Beijing: Beijing lianhe. Zhao Youwen 趙幼文, ed. 1984. Cao Zhi ji jiaozhu 曹植集校注. Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe.

Nicholas Morrow Williams is an associate professor of Chinese literature at Arizona State University. He studies and translates classical Chinese poetry, and also works in related areas such as medieval Buddhism, Sino-Japanese literature, and translation studies. His forthcoming publications include a monograph on Chinese Poetry as Soul Summoning and a translation of the Elegies of Chu for the “Oxford World’s Classics” series.

Into the River of History: An Account of My Translation Work with the Grand Scribe’s Records (Shiji) William H. Nienhauser

Abstract In the beginning was the text. Actually, I should have written “in the beginning were the texts,” since Sima Qian makes it clear he left both an original version of the Shiji and a copy). And the text was called Taishigong ji 太史公記 or Taishigong shu 太史公書. There are various understandings of Taishigong 太史公 but any translated title should recognize that the shi 史 in Shiji is short for this official title not for “history” or even “historian.” Thus translations such as “Records of History” or “Historical Records” or “Records of the Scribe” and even “Records of the Historian” are inaccurate. Our rendering of the “Grand Scribe’s Records” may be open to discussion, but that discussion must acknowledge that the Shiji is an abbreviation and address the original title Taishigong. I have often been asked to describe the Shiji in a few words: my attempts include “a national narrative of early China” and “a combination of the Old Testament and Herodotus.” But they both fall short of Wang Chong’s 王充 (127–200) metaphoric depiction: “those books written in the Han dynasty were numerous: Sima Qian is the Yellow River and Yang Xiong the Han River, the remainder are the Jing and Wei rivers” 漢作書者多, 司馬子長、楊子雲, 河、漢也, 其餘, 涇、渭也 (In the “An shu” 案書 chapter of the Lunheng). Although I am not a good swimmer, in what follows I shall try to explain how I entered Sima Qian’s river. Keywords Shiji · Sima Qian · Grand Scribe’s Records · Chinese history · Translation

This chapter is reprinted from: Nienhauser, William H. Jr. 2020. Into the River of History: An Account of My Translation Work with the Grand Scribe’s Records (Shiji). Translation Horizons 10: 111–123. W. H. Nienhauser (B) University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Qi and S. Tobias (eds.), Encountering China’s Past, New Frontiers in Translation Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0648-0_15

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1 Early Studies My earliest contact with China and its people came through reading Thirty Seconds over Tokyo (Lawson 1953), one of the Landmark Books, as a child. The descriptions of how Chinese ordinary people aided the pilots who parachuted out of their planes in Shandong after this famous first air raid on the Japanese capital were fascinating. After a semester at Fenn College (now Cleveland State University) studying engineering, I realized I did not want to become an engineer, much to the dismay of my father (but not my professors). After talking to the US Army recruiters (I had just turned 18 at the time), they convinced me that I should become a spy. So I enlisted in January 1962 and spent two months in basic infantry training. Toward the end of that period I took an examination that qualified me for the Army Language School in Monterey, California. My hope was to study Russian, but army advisors told me to put down Chinese as my first choice and Russian as my second, then change back to Russian when I arrived at the school. In my naïveté, I followed their advice. Upon arrival, I found that the US Army does not entertain such changes, so along with eight other enlisted men I found myself studying Mandarin Chinese. We had six hours of class every day, five days a week with a great deal of homework. For each class hour a different native-Chinese teacher appeared. After only a few weeks I realized that these teachers had an involvement with their students beyond anything I had experienced. Gradually I became convinced selecting Chinese as my choice was preordained. And, of course, I did not become a spy. My fellow students in the class at the Army Languages School all had college experience and their influence and guidance helped me to decide to leave the army at the end of my three-year enlistment and enroll at Indiana University. I knew little about the Chinese program at Indiana, only that Bloomington, Indiana was not too far from my home in northeastern Ohio and that the university would give me twenty-six credits for the work I had done at the Army Language School. I began class in the spring of 1965 and took Y. J. Chih’s (1917–2016) fourth-year Chinese class which focused on reading modern political documents and Chinese newspapers. By spring 1966, after summer school in 1965, I got my B.A. summa cum laude, and began graduate study, intending to work on one of the late-Qing novelists (Wu Woyao 吳沃堯 was my first choice). Over the next few years, I finished eight semesters of Japanese and all the courses on Chinese literature and history that were offered. Although my advisors were Irving Yucheng Lo 羅郁正 (1922–2005) for the M.A. and Wu-chi Liu 劉無忌 (1907–2002) for the Ph.D., Friedrich Bischoff was also a tremendous influence. It was from him that I became interested in the fu genre. I wrote my MA thesis on the “Meiren” 美人 and “Changmen” 長門 fu attributed to Sima Xiangru 司馬相如 (179–117 BCE). After two years of graduate school in Bloomington, I was skeptical about going on with my studies. Professor Bischoff suggested going to Germany where there was no tuition and I would be able to think more about my future. I had an NDEA Title IV three-year fellowship at the time, so my wife and I decided to follow Bischoff’s advice. Admitted to the University of Bonn, I studied there for a year under Peter Olbricht, learning

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about Tang texts (especially Liu Zongyuan 柳宗元 [773–819]) and German academic life, then returning to Bloomington to resume study at Indiana University in fall 1969. Following up on my earlier research, I began to read more about Han dynasty literature, eventually writing my dissertation on “Literary and Historical Aspects of the Xijing zaji 西京雜記 (Miscellaneous Records of the Western Capital)” which I finished in fall 1972. At the same time, I worked with Professor Liu and fellow students on a biographical study of Liu Zongyuan for the Twayne World Author Series (Nienhauser 1973). In Liu Zongyuan’s writings, especially the allegorical biographies, I recognized the strong influence of Sima Qian’s style and structure. I began looking for a teaching position in 1971, but found none. Then, after teaching German at Indiana University as a Visiting Assistant Professor for a year, I came to the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1973 where I have been teaching ever since.

2 First Years of Teaching and the Beginning of the Project I came to the Department of East Asian Languages at the University of Wisconsin with the support of Joseph S. M. Lau 劉紹銘, who was also moving to Madison to accept a position in that department. Throughout my first decade of teaching, Professor Lau was a mentor and close friend. I was afforded the opportunity to teach graduate classes from the beginning and learned as much from my students as they did from me. My interest in narrative—particularly the relationships between literary and historical—texts continued, abated by study in narrative theory guided by Arthur Kunst of the Department of Comparative Literature. In 1975 I received the first (of what would be many) fellowships from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation fellowship to study Tang narrative under Professor Liu Mau-tsai 劉茂才 at the University of Hamburg. Hamburg gave me the opportunity to read extensively about Chinese narrative. Having been fascinated as a child by the biographies in the Landmark Book series, I began to read Tang biographies, something that had begun under Professor Olbricht nearly a decade earlier. Under Professor Liu Mao-tsai’s guidance I published my first article, “An Allegorical Reading of Han Yu’s ‘Mao Ying Zhuan’ 毛潁傳 (Biography of Fur Point)” (Nienhauser 1976). This reflected my earlier interests in the relationship between historical and fictional texts. Han Yu 韓愈 (768–824) and Liu Zongyuan’s “pseudo-biographies” (e.g., “Mao Ying zhuan” and “Bushezhe zhuan” 捕蛇者傳 [An Account of the Snake Catcher]) in turn led me to examine the thirty-five zhuan 傳 included in the early Song anthology Wenyuan yinghua 文苑英華. As I read other guwen 古文 (ancient-style prose) pieces by Han Yu’s followers, I became convinced that the fugu 復古 (return to antiquity) writings of the ninth century were tied to larger social and intellectual changes. Intrigued by the mix of fictional and historical narratives in this corpus, I took a Structuralist approach to these texts and published my second article in the Journal of Asian Studies (Nienhauser 1977). Aware by then that Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan were following the form of a typical liezhuan 列傳 in the Grand Scribe’s Records, I did

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not yet explore this indebtedness. Rather I spent the last years of the 1970s finishing a book on the late Tang poet, Pi Rixiu 皮日休 (ca. 834–883) (Nienhauser 1979). The poetic sections of this book evolved from the several years I spent in what came to be called the “Sunflower Poetry-reading Group” led by Irving Lo. Some of my early attempts at translating (Pi’s poems and those of others) appeared in 1975 in Sunflower Splendor, edited by Professors Liu and Lo. More to the point of my interest in Sima Qian, however, were the two zhuan 傳 (accounts) Pi wrote in imitation of Han Yu, “Zhaonü zhuan” 趙女傳 and “Ho Wu zhuan” 何武傳. The former is an account of a “virtuous woman” (lienü 烈女) and the latter a story a man who was slandered and unjustly punished. Although both works were intended to be historical, Pi appended moralizing postfaces to each piece in which was clearly a nod to Sima Qian. In 1979 I received an ACLS Study Grant to read more on the social and economic history of the Tang dynasty, mentored by Kang Chao of the Department of Economics at the University of Wisconsin. The following year I published some results of my research as “Some Preliminary Remarks on Fiction, the Classical Tradition and Society in Late Ninth-century China” (Yang and Adkins 1980, 16). In 1981 I undertook a project that would occupy me for the first few years of the 1980s: editing the Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature (Nienhauser 1986) supported by a large research grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. This, and serving as Chairman of the Department of East Asian Languages and Literature for two years, took most of my time. Although I wrote the essay on “Prose” for the Companion, only a paragraph in that essay was devoted to the Shiji. The entries for the Shiji and Sima Qian I entrusted to Stephen Durrant, whom I knew was well versed in these topics. My translation interests were limited to the zhuan in the Wenyuan yinghua. Intent to read other zhuan and to explore further the Shiji, while honing my reading ability in classical texts, I accepted an offer in the spring of 1983 to teach in the Department of Foreign Languages at National Taiwan University supported by a National Science Council grant. But my main research interests remained in the Tang. The following summer I returned to Germany again as a Humboldt Fellow, this time to Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. There the two famous professors, Herbert Franke and Wolfgang Bauer, had both done considerable work on the Shiji. Discussions with both enhanced my interest in that text. From 1985 to 1987, I was in Taiwan supported by an Inter-University Stanford Center fellowship. I read Liu Zongyuan with one of their most famous tutors, Mrs. Liang 梁太太. I also became friends with the head of the Foreign Languages program at Taida 台大, Wang Chiu-kuei 王秋桂, and this was to impact greatly my renewed interest in translating the Shiji. I had been working on the relationships between the Ancient-style Movement 古文運動 and Tang tales and struggling with the language of Tang chuanqi 傳奇. I would usually go to Chiugui’s house about 11 p.m. since he liked to work late. We would talk about the texts I was working on. After perhaps half a dozen visits, he told me that the Wenjianhui 文建會 (Council on Cultural Planning and Development) had a large sum of money earmarked for four major translation projects by Western sinologists and urged me to propose the Shiji as one of the topics. Chiu-kuei argued that the 1959 Zhonghua edition of the Shiji contained too many errors and suggested that I should also do a new critical edition of the text, but I

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was savvy enough to realize that was (and is) beyond my capabilities. As a result, possibly with Chiu-kuei’s continued help behind the scenes, I received one of the four grants (Stephen Owen and Göran Malmqvist were two of the other recipients) for $125,900, to translate those chapters of the Shiji (thirty in all) which had not been rendered into English by Burton Watson and the Yangs, Yang Xianyi 楊憲益 and Gladys Yang 戴乃迭.

3 The Project Itself With this generous support, I assembled a team that included Professor Tsai-fa Cheng 鄭再發, Zongli Lu 呂宗力, and Robert Reynolds, the latter pair both graduate students in our department. Tsai-fa Cheng was well versed in classical Chinese texts; Zongli Lu had been a member of the Qin-Han Research unit at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and Robert Reynolds had received his B.A. from National Taiwan University. We compiled a glossary so that our rendering of terms would be consistent (Reynold’s idea). 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 for a team of translators. For several weeks I poured 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. It became obvious 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. This focus on narrative translation was a complete turnaround, since 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 modeled on those of 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. We began by simply translating Shiji chapters simply from the 1959 Zhonghua edition. We divided the work initially: Zongli, Robert, and I met on the drafts of the liezhuan 列傳 (arranged traditions or in our translation “memoirs”), many of which were done in draft by my project assistant, Chao Ming Chan 陳照明, or by Robert. Tsai-fa and I did the benji 本紀 (basic annals), working mainly from Lao Gan’s 勞榦 (1907–2003) Shiji jinzhu 史記今註; Tsai-fa drafted the translations and I revised and added footnotes. I worked five mornings a week, four with Zongli and Robert, and Friday morning with Tsai-fa, going over each draft line-by-line. Soon we understood that would have to consult Wang Liqi’s baihua translation, Shiji zhuyi 史記注譯

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(1988), Takigawa Kametar¯o’s 瀧川龜太郎 (1865–1946) text and notes, Shiki kaich¯u kosh¯o 史記會注考證 (1986), and Wang Shumin’s 王叔岷 (1914–2008) commentary, Shiji jiaozheng 史記斠證 (1982).1 Later publications appeared including the Shiji quanzhu quanyi 史記全註全譯 (1995) edited by Zongli and Wu Shuping 吳樹平 and Han Zhaoqi’s 韓兆琦 Shiji jianzheng 史記箋證 (2004) which became additional important sources. 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 seven volumes 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, explaining that he thought it would take three years to complete, was told by Cleaves that he should have said “‘thirty years!” (Watson 1995, 201–202). 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 顧頡剛 (1893–1980) 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). By that time, we had completed our review of almost all the chapters of the first volumes. A glossary that Robert Reynolds constructed was initially our guide: Robert seemed to have memorized the list and often saved us time through his facility at recalling how we had translated this or that term 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 (such as zhi ren 知人, in “Cike liezhuan” 刺客列傳, for example), our glossary helped 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’....” (Hunt 2011, 3). Thus we distinguished between gong 攻 “to attack,” yu zhan 與戰 “to give battle to,” fa 伐 “to lead a punitive expedition against,” ji 擊 “to assault, strike at,” and also ju qing zhi 居頃之 “after a short time had passed” vis-à-vis jiu zhi 久之 “after a short time,” qing zhi 頃之 “some time later,” and ji er 既而 “after some time.” Later we also developed a Stylesheet that we still use (for a detailed account of one session of our group, see the “Note on Procedures” section below). My own early work was enabled in 1991 by a Center for Chinese Studies fellowship from the Central Library in Taibei that allowed me to compare various Shiji editions at Academia Sinicia. On my return to Madison late that summer, we added 1

Takigawa was published originally in Tokyo in 1934 and reprinted by Shanghai Guji in 1986. We also consulted the Bona 百納 and Jingyou 景祐 editions, two texts not seen by the Zhonghua editors in 1959.

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the footnotes, the majority falling to Robert and me. By the end of 1992 (the date we had promised the Wenjianhui we would complete our work), we had translated and annotated most of the thirty chapters. One or two chapters toward our deadline were largely based on Burton Watson. We then sent out chapters to be read by a number of colleagues including David Knechtges, Stephen Durrant, C. S. Goodrich, Allyn Rickett, Xu Zhuoyun 許倬雲, Jens Petersen, Robert Henricks, A. F. P. Hulsewé, and Victor Mair. Finally the first two volumes of our translation, The Grand Scribe’s Records, Volume 1: The Basic Annals of Pre-Han China, and The Grand Scribe’s Records and Volume 7: The Memoirs of Pre-Han China, appeared from Indiana University Press in 1994. But by that time the initial group of translators had dissolved, the graduate students finishing their degrees and Tsai-fa Cheng turning to his own research. I had already begun to work on other chapters and spent the summer of 1993 at Beijing Normal University consulting with Han Zhaoqi 韓兆琦 (on a Committee on Scholarly Communication with China grant). During that sojourn, Lu Zongli introduced me to Wu Shuping who in turn took me to meet Wang Liqi 王利器 (1912–1998) and Qian Zhongshu 錢鐘書 (1910–1998). Supported by FulbrightHayes and ACLS fellowships, both held in Taiwan from 1994 to 1996, I worked on translating the basic annals of Han Gaozu 漢高祖 and Lü Hou 呂后. Tu Zhengsheng 杜正勝 made it possible for me to visit Academia Sinica in the summer of 1996 and work in the library there. I was also fortunate to be able to visit and consult Wang Shumin 王叔岷 who answered a number of questions I had concerning his Shiji commentaries. At the end of the summer I took part in the large conference celebrating the 2140th anniversary of Sima Qian’s birth held in Xi’an where I met many of the well-known Shiji scholars from China and Japan. On my return in fall 1996, I began to teach seminars on the Shiji and engaged all the graduate students who signed up for them to help with the translation. We focused on the remaining five benji and began to work through the shijia 世家 (hereditary houses). Although many graduate students worked on the project—we would often divide up chapters and each student would present his section in class—the group from the late 1990s that stands out in my mind were Su Zhi, Chen Zhi 陳致 (who did the base translation of “Wu Taibo shijia” 吴太伯世家), Shang Cheng 尚琤, Cao Weiguo 曹衛國 (who translated “Xiao Wen Di benji” 孝文帝本纪 and “Lu Zhougong shijia” 鲁周公世家, and the “Chu shijia” 楚世家), Huang Hongyu 黃紅宇 (who rendered the “Yan Shaogong shijia” 晏召公世家), Bruce Knickerbocker (who translated the “Qi Taigong shijia” 齐太公世家), and Scott W. Galer (who did the “Xiao Jing Di benji” 孝景帝本纪). We also went over draft translations every Saturday morning in my home over cake and coffee or tea. The fall of 1996 also brought an invitation from Michael Puett at Harvard to attend that October a workshop in Cambridge, Massachusetts: “Approaches to Understanding Sima Qian’s Shiji.” To be frank, I was overawed by the scholars who would attend and wavered about going myself. Moreover, I was writing a rather critical review of Stephen Owen’s The End of the Chinese Middle Ages (1996) for the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies (Nienhauser, 1998) and felt anxious about encountering Owen with whom I had always had a good relationship. So I took

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myself instead to Paris and with the help of the gracious Jacques Gernet viewed the library left by Édouard Chavannes (1865–1918) now housed in the Société Asiatique. Chavannes’ library occupied one entire shelf (about twelve feet long and nine feet high) and contained many early editions of the Shiji including several printings of the Shiji pinglin 史記評林. I was also able to examine the unpublished manuscripts, partial translations of almost all the Shiji chapters left by Chavannes and collected in the archives of the Musée Guimet (where my rudimentary French let me down completely).2 During the 1996–97 academic year David Pankenier joined the group working on the remaining basic annals, translating the “Wudi benji” 武帝本紀. In the summer of 1997, supported by a Humboldt Foundation renewal fellowship I worked at the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin examining the manuscripts that Erich Haenisch (1880– 1966), who translated some Shiji chapters during his tenure as professor of Sinology in Munich, had left unpublished. Haenisch’s plan was to translate into German those chapters not contained in Chavannes five volumes.3 In late August 1997 Pankenier joined Scott Cook, David Honey, Chen Zhi, and Lu Zongli at the first Workshop on Early Chinese History and Historiography held on the University of Wisconsin campus. Each visiting scholar presented a paper and then led the discussion of a draft of our benji translations. With the suggestions from the Workshop, and the added comments from Rafe de Crespigny, Michael Loewe, John Page, and Michael Puett, we finalized chapters 8–12 which were published as The Grand Scribe’s Records, Volume 2: The Basic Annals of Han China in 2002. The following year with the help of Lu Zongli, I was invited by Wang Yundu 王雲度 to go to Xuzhou Normal University 徐州師範大學 and to visit Pei 沛 and Feng 豐 counties and see sites related in popular lore to Liu Bang’s 劉邦 birth and youth. I also acquired a complete set of Liu Bang yanjiu 劉邦研究 (through 1993). From the fall of 1999 through February 2000, I was at Kyoto University as a research professor for the fall semester and a Japan Foundation fellow for the last two months. My host, Kawai K¯oz¯o 川合康三, made it possible for me to read and copy sections of several editions of the Shiji not available elsewhere. He also introduced me to Fujita Katsuhisa 藤田勝久 of Ehime University, who provided me with Japanese materials on the Shiji and continued to advise us for over a decade. Late in 1999, I visited Tohoku University and was able to review their collection of materials and photos related to Takigawa Kametar¯o 瀧川龜太郎 (1865–1946).4

2

For details of my findings, see Nienhauser (2007, 655–765). See Haenisch (1965). In the materials I found in the Haenisch Nachlass in Berlin, it is clear that Haenisch was hoping to fill in the gaps in Chavannes’ work with his own translations and those of his students (like Wolfgang Bauer, whose dissertation was a translation of C and Debon’s own chapter). Haenisch left handwritten versions of chapters 48, 49, 68, 69, 75, and 79 together with a suggested list of translations of chapters to include 50 and 70–74, and 76–78. 4 This trip was the basis of my “Takigawa Kametar¯ o and His Contributions to the Study of the Shiji,” in Ess, Hans van, Olga Lomová, and Dorothee Schaab-Hanke, eds. (2015, 243–262). 3

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4 Working with a German Shiji Group Two years later I was putting together a new group of graduate students at the University of Wisconsin. Cao Weiguo was still in Madison and he was joined the following year by Wang Jing 王静, Zhao Hua 趙化, David Herrmann, Meghan Cai, Shang Cheng, and others. But the translation was lagging. So that same year, 2001, having benefitted from a number of renewals of my Humboldt Fellowship, I spent the summer of 2001 at Erlangen University working with Michael Lackner trying to develop a Shiji-translation group in Germany. Professor Lackner offered to recommend me for the Humboldt Forschungspreis but referred me to Hans van Ess who was the new professor at Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich and a scholar already known for his work on the Shiji. I received the Forschungspreis in 2002 and spent spring semester in Erlangen again, meeting every week with scholars there in addition to Professor Reinhard Emmerich who often came down from Münster and Professor van Ess who drove up with three of his graduate students from Munich every Friday. From 2002 on I visited Germany twice a year through June 2019, moving my base from Erlangen to Munich. During the next few years, supported by DAAD and Humboldt funds, I joined Hans van Ess’s German group to work on both the preQin hereditary houses and the next twenty-four memoirs. The Madison group also contributed a number of chapters to the resulting Grand Scribe’s Records volumes 5.1 (2006), 8 (2008), and 9 (2010). During these years, I also hosted a number of international workshops at the University of Wisconsin modeled on the first such gathering in 1997—in 1999, in 2002, 2004, 2008, 2010, and 2012. Participants included Katsuhisa Fujita 藤田胜久, David Schaberg, Grant Hardy, Enno Giele, and many others. In 2013 Chen Zhi hosted a workshop at Hong Kong Baptist University and the following year in summer Prof. Bernhard Fuehrer of SOAS-London brought us together in his country home in the countryside of the Dordogne River Valley in France. Many of the chapters discussed at these gatherings appeared in v. 11 (2019). From 2011 to 2019, I spent a month in spring at the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich working with Hans van Ess’s group: Jakob Pöllath, Marc Nürnberger, Andreas Siegl, Clara Luhn, Maddalena Barenghi, Sebastian Eicher, and Katrin Lesse-Messing and others, supported alternately by Humboldt and Center for Advanced Studies-LMU grants.

5 A Note on Procedures Over the years between working in Munich and in Madison we refined our methods of revising translation drafts. As an example, an account of the session on 26 March 2011 should serve. That day our group in Madison included thirteen young scholars: one American, one Russian, ten from China, and one from Taiwan, all graduate students in East Asian Languages at the University of Wisconsin. We reviewed a first-draft translation of “Xunli liezhuan” 循吏列傳 (Memoir of the Officials Who Follow

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Reason, chapter 119 in the Shiji) that I had prepared. 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. The procedure was 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 is a question or comment, a discussion often ensues. This is not unlike the procedure followed by the King James Bible translators.5 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: [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.6 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 affect 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 文” and “wu 武” referred to in “wen wu bu bei 文武不備.” The baihua translation by Wu Shuping and Lü Zongli (1995, 119.3121) reads: “Suiran wen de bu bei, wugong bu yang. 雖然文德不備, 武功不揚.” 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 Kametar¯o in his commentary (1986, 119.2).7 The “bei,” we agreed, meant something like “wan bei 完備” (complete). Although Wu and Lü glossed xun li循理 de li as “fa li 法理” (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 三家注. 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: 5

“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 2011, 3). 6 Compare the opening lines of “Kuli liezhuan”酷吏列傳 (“The Memoir of the Harsh Officials”) (Shih chi, 122.3131), which begins with a citation of Confucius from the Analects (Lun yü 《論語》, 2.3): 孔子曰: 「導之以政, 齊之以刑, 民免而無恥。導之以德, 齊之以禮, 有恥且格。」 “Confucius said: “If you guide them with the reins of government and keep them in order with [corporal] punishments, the people will try to avoid [them] but will have no sense of shame. If you guide them with virtue and keep them in order by means of propriety, then [they] will have shame and be correct” (translation from Grand Scribe’s Records [Nienhauser 2019, 11.1–2]). A few lines later in the same chapter, Sima Qian himself comments: 法令者治之具, 而非制治清濁之源也. “Laws and orders are only the tools of government, but not the source to regulate whether the government is pure or polluted.” Indeed, this chapter is intended to be read in tandem with that of the harsh officials. 7 It is also the reading given by Zhang Dake 張大可 (1986, 326).

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[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 affect good government. What need is there for threats and severity?”

The original passage reads: 太史公曰: 法令所以導民也, 刑罰所以禁姦也 。文武不備, 良民懼然身修者, 官未曾亂也。奉職循理, 亦可以為治, 何必威嚴哉? My draft of Chapter 119 continues: Sun Shu Ao 孫叔敖 was an as yet unemployed scholar of Ch’u. Prime Minister Yü Ch’iu 虞丘 recommended him to King Chuang 莊 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 marvelous, 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 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. 孫叔敖者, 楚之處士也。虞丘相進之於楚莊王, 以自代也。三月為楚相, 施教導民, 上下和合, 世俗盛美, 政緩禁止, 吏無姦邪, 盜賊不起。秋冬則勸民山採, 春夏以水, 各得其所便, 民皆樂其生。

A second student read this passage. She pointed out the anecdote cited in the “Zhengyi 正義” commentary and asked if I wanted to include it. I explained that like Qu Yuan 屈原, 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 上下”) that I translated in Zi Chan’s 子產 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 俗” in the expression “shisu sheng mei.” Wu and Lü (119.3121) translate this line as “minjian fengsu chunhou meihao 民間風俗淳厚美好,” which seems to add too much to “sheng mei” (Hanyu 7:1427a glosses “sheng mei” simply as “meishan 美善” [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). Burton Watson, one of the students in our group pointed out, had “though the government was lenient, it was able to prevent evil” (Watson 1993, 2:374). Wu and Lü (1995, 119.3121) understood these four graphs as meaning “zhengling kuanhe, fa jin yanming. 政令寬和, 法禁嚴明,” “administrative orders were lenient and legal proscriptions strict and impartial.” While Watson’s “evil” for “zhi 止” seemed a stretch, Wu and Lü’s rendition was possible. The Hanyu da cidian

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《漢語大詞典》 (7:920b–921a) gives several glosses for “jinzhi”: (1) “to cause a cessation of something by means of administrative orders” (from Guan Zi 管子), (2) “to restrict the free movement of an impeached official” (Han shu), (3) to stop or prevent (Mo Zi 墨子), 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 有井進齋 (1830–1889), who wrote “the governing of those who follow [reasonable methods], their administration was easy-going, their punishments were simplified” (“Qi zheng pingyi, qi xing jianyue. 其政平易, 其刑簡約.”)8 (1992, 119.1b). 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 徐廣 (352–425), cited in the Jijie《集解》 reads “cheng duo shui shi, er chu cai zhu. 乘多水時, 而出材竹,” “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 下” found in a number of editions (cf. Takigawa 1986, 119.3) after “spring and summer”: “chunqiu xia yi shui春秋下以水,” “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 (1986, 119.3) notes the modern scholar Li Li’s 李笠 (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] ….”9 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 everyone obtained the benefits of his surroundings,” apparently reading “suo 所” 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’ 相曰 ‘罷’.” 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 Arii Shinsai was the editor of the Shiji pinglin bubiao《史記評林補標》. His note on this passage can be found in the scholia on Shiji pinglin (1992, 119.1b). 9 Cf. Li Li, Shiji dingbu《史記訂補》, collated by Chen Zhun 陳準 (1924 woodblock edition, 8.14b). 8

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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. 莊王以為幣輕, 更以小為大, 百姓不便, 皆去其業。市令言之相曰: 「市亂, 民莫安其處, 次行不定。」相曰: 「如此幾何頃乎?」市令曰: 「三月頃。」相曰: 「罷, 吾今令之復矣 。」後五日, 朝, 相言之王曰: 「前日更幣, 以為輕。今市令來言曰『市亂, 民莫安其處, 次行之不定』。臣請遂令復如故。」王許之, 下令三日而市復如故。

As several students noted, this did not sound like idiomatic English. We revised it to “Say no more!” Watson (1993, 374) and Aoki Gor¯o 青木五郎 (2007, 119.466)10 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不必慌張” (from the basic meaning of “ba” as “to dismiss,” it would seem). Then we looked up usages of “yue ba 曰罷” in the Shiji (using the Siku database) and found it occurred only one other time, in Chen Ping’s 陳平 biography (Shiji, 56.2053). The text there reads “Ping deng qi ren ju jin, ci shi. Wang yue: ‘Ba, jiu she yi.’ 平等七人俱進, 賜食 。王曰: 「罷, 就舍矣。」” Watson translates “After Chen Ping and six other guests at the interview had come forward and received gifts of food,11 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.’” At this point we stopped for the day coming back to finish the chapter the following week.

6 The Final Push In the spring of 2012, I was appointed Visiting Professor at Nanyang Technical University and organized a Shiji Reading Group attended by Michael Puett, Jingyi Qu 曲景毅, Jia Li 李佳, Chiu Ming Chang, So Jeong Park, Winne Song, and Yan Shoucheng. Volume 10 was published in 2016 as the result of cooperative work in Munich, Madison, and Singapore. I felt certain that this would be the last volume and that I would retire at age 70 in spring 2014. However, I found the attachment to Sima Qian too strong, and with Hans van Ess’s encouragement, decided to continue both teaching and the translation work. In 2016 I also privately published (available on Amazon) a translation of Jean Levi’s novel, Le fils du ciel et son annaliste—as “The Emperor and His Annalist”— a fascinating novel about Emperor Wu of the Han and Sima Qian. That year also marked the first of four annual workshops (2016, 2017, 2018, 2019) at Nanjing 10 11

Shiki《史記》 (Tokyo: Meiji Shoten, 2007), v. 12. Probably “conferred a meal” is closer to the original.

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University, each focusing on a different chapter of the Shiji. Beginning with a small group of twelve in 2016, the 2019 workshop involved over thirty participants from several universities in the Nanjing area as well as participants from Hangzhou and Hong Kong. Our procedure was to first read a few pages of my translation and annotation to familiarize students with the secondary materials we used as well as our rather literal translation style. Then the students, organized in groups of three or four, prepared their own translations and annotation for the rest of the chapter. In 2019 they even published a booklet containing the final versions of their work on “Chen She shijia” 陳涉世家 (The Hereditary House of Chen She). These workshops were initially arranged through my former student, Chen Zhi of Hong Kong Baptist University and his former fellow student, Xu Xingwu 徐興無, now Dean of the School of Letters at Nanjing University. Dean Xu’s largesse and overall support made these gatherings a success. I am also grateful to the Research Committee of the University of Wisconsin who provided me with full research support in spring 2018 and fall 2019. As a result of the Nanjing workshops, Nanjing University Press decided to republish all the volumes of our translation. They began in 2018 with volumes 1 and 2. Since volumes 1 and 7 were the first published (1994), I decided to try to revise the chapters before republishing. Throughout spring 2018, I worked with a talented group of post-docs and dissertation fellows from China, Sun Bao 孫寶, Zhang Zongpin 張宗品, Lyu Xinfu 呂新福, Yu Jianping 余建平, and Deng Lin 鄧琳, as well as my own students, Yixuan Cai 蔡譯萱, Masha Kobzeva, Josiah Stork, and Zheyu Su 蘇哲宇, along with Ji Wang 王吉, to revise most of the text of volume 1. Helping us in this effort was the Elling O. Eide Center which sponsored a workshop that brought together many of the German translators with those from Madison along with former University of Wisconsin students Weiguo Cao 曹衛國, Hongyu Huang 黃宏宇, and Zongli Lu 呂宗力, for a long weekend in November 2018 during which we read chapters slated for volume 6, the Han dynasty hereditary houses, which will be published in late 2020. At present, I am editing the twenty-eight chapters in volume 7 which have been revised by twenty-two current and former University of Wisconsin students and members of the Van Ess Group. Many of these chapters will be reviewed in a second workshop at the Eide Center in November 2019. In 2020, I plan to complete work on the remaining pre-Han hereditary houses that have been in draft form for nearly a decade. And with that, wade ashore and leave Sima Qian to others.

References Aoki, Gor¯o 清木五郎, ed. 2007. Shiki 史記. 12 vols. Tokyo: Meiji Shoten. Haenisch, Nachlass. 1965. Der Herr von Sin-ling, Reden aus dem Chang-kuo ts’e und Biographien aus dem Shi-ki. Stuttgart: Reclam. Han, Zhaoqi 韓兆琦. 2004. Shiji jianzheng 史記箋證. Nanchang: Jiangxi renmin chubansshe.

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Hunt, Arnold. 2011. 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, 5628: 3. Lawson, Ted W. 1953. Thirty Seconds over Tokyo (Landmark). Books. New York: Random House. Ling, Zhilong, Li Guangjin, and Arii Shinsai, eds. 1992. Shiji Pinglin Bubiao 史記評林補標. Taipei: Diqiu chubanshe. Nienhauser, William H. 1973. Liu Tsung-yüan. Twayne’s World Authors Series, TWAS 255: China. New York: Twayne Publishers. Nienhauser, William H. 1976. An Allegorical Reading of Han Yü’s ‘Mao-Ying Chuan’ (Biography of Fur Point). Oriens Extremus 23 (2): 153–174. Neinhauser, William H. 1977. A Structural Reading of the Chuan in the Wen-Yuan Ying-Hua. The Journal of Asian Studies 36 (3): 443–456. Nienhauser, William H. 1978. Once Again, the Authorship of the Hsi-Ching Tsa-Chi (Miscellanies of the Western Capital). Journal of the American Oriental Society 98 (3): 219–236. https://doi. org/10.2307/598684. Nienhauser, William H. 1979. P‘i Jih-hsiu. Twayne’s World Authors Series, TWAS 530: China. Boston: Twayne Publishers. Nienhauser, William H. 1986. The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Nienhauser, William H, ed. 1994a. The Grand Scribe’s Records, Volume 1: The Basic Annals of Pre-Han China. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Nienhauser, William H, ed. 1994b. The Grand Scribe’s Records, Volume 7: The Memoirs of Pre-Han China. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Nienhauser, William H. 1998. Review of The End of the Chinese ‘Middle Ages.’ Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 58 (1): 287–310. https://doi.org/10.2307/2652657. Nienhauser, William H, ed. 2002. The Grand Scribe’s Records, Volume 2: The Basic Annals of Han China. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Nienhauser, William H. 2007. 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, ed. Marc Hermann, Christian Schwermann, and Jari Grosse-Ruyken, 755–765. Sankt Augustin-Nettetal: Steyler Verlag. Nienhauser, William H. 2015. Takigawa Kametar¯o and His Contributions to the Study of the Shiji. In Views from Within, Views from Beyond: Approaches to the Shiji as an Early Work of Historiography, ed. Hans van Ess, Olga Lomová, and Dorothee Schaab-Hanke, 243–262. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Nienhauser, William H. 2016. The Emperor and His Annalist: A Tale of Han Wudi. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. Nienhauser, William H., ed. 2019. The Grand Scribe’s Records, Volume11. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Owen, Stephen. 1996. The End of the Chinese ‘Middle Ages. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Sima, Qian 司馬遷. 1959. Shiji 史記. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. Takigawa, Kametar¯o. 1986. Shi ji hui zhu kao zheng fu jiao bu 史記會注考證附校補. Shanghai Gu Ji Chubanshe: Xin Hua Shu Dian. Wang Liqi 王利器. 1988. Shiji zhuyi 史記注譯. 4 vols. Xi’an: Sanqin. Wang Shumin 王叔岷. 1982. Shiji jiaozheng 史記斠證. Taipei: Academia Sinica. Watson, Burton. 1993. Records of the Grand Historian, vol. 1. Hong Kong and New York: Columbia University Press and Renditions. Watson, Burton. 1995. “The Shih Chi and I”. Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles. Reviews (CLEAR) 17: 199–206. https://doi.org/10.2307/495590. Wu, Shuping, and Lü Zongli, eds. 1995. Shiji quanzhu quanyi 史記全注全譯. Tianjin: Tianjin Guji Chubanshe. Yang, Winston LY, and Curtis P. Adkins, eds. 1980. Critical Essays on Chinese Fiction. Chinese University Press. Zhang, Dake 張大可. 1986. Shiji lunzuan jishi史記論贊輯釋. Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe.

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William H. Nienhauser, Jr. majored in Chinese literature at Indiana University and Bonn University receiving his Ph.D in 1973 under Professor Liu Wuji 柳无忌. That year, heNienhauser became aAssistant pProfessor of East Asian Literature (University of Wisconsin); he has been HallsBascom Chair Professor of Chinese Literature since 1995 but has also taught or held research grants in China, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, and Germany. His publications include Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature (2 volumes), eight volumes of translations from the Shiji (The Grand Scribe’s Records) as well as biographical studies of P’i Jih-hsiu (Pi Rixiu) and Liu Tsung-yuan (Liu Zongyuan), in addition to more than 100 articles and reviews. In 2003, he was awarded a Forschungspreis (Research Prize) for lifetime achievement from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.