[Humble attempt to translate "Der Tod des Dschuang Dsï", published in Dschuang Dsï - Südliches Blütenland, Eugen Diederichs Verlag, p. 294]
Friday, July 10, 2009
The Death of Zhuangzi
Zhuangzi was dying, and his disciples wanted to bury him splendiferously.
Spake Zhuangzi: "Heaven and earth are my coffin. Sun and moon are my jade rings, the stars my pearls and gems, and the whole creation escorts me. Thus, I shall have a splendid funeral. What else would you add?"
Spake the disciples: "We are afraid, crows and kites might eat the master."
Spake Zhuangzi: "Unburied I serve crows and kites as nutrition, buried worms and ants. To take from the one to give to the other: why being such biased?
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that looks like a humble good translation Sean.)
ReplyDeletekindest
hans
Sean- Pour un coup d'essai, ce fût un coup de maitre.
ReplyDeleteSplendiferously...What a magnificent word for the burial of an extraordinary man. I hope you'll give us more anecdotes from Eugen Diederichs Verlag.
Maître, avec l'accent circonflexe.Very important de bien écrire une citation.:))
ReplyDeleteI love this Sean. Thanks for posting
ReplyDeleteHa ha, my dear Hans. I have no doubt you know that 'humble good' in German is 'bescheiden gut', and that 'bescheiden' in this case very often stands for 'beschissen'.
ReplyDeleteha ha ha ...
Have a great weekend, my friend.
Claudia,
did I ever mention that your kind compliments once might be the reason for a seanish megalomania? :)
Just to make sure: Eugen Diederich is the publisher, not the author/translator.
The translator is the same who translated the I Ching from the Chinese into German: Richard Wilhelms.
As for your kind wish: I'd like to post quite a few 'anecdotes' but, unfortunately, it would take too long translating them. That's why I'd prefer to find proper English translations. We shall see ... :)
Jams,
so glad you like it.
Strangely, only recently I talked with a friend exactly about this kind of an end ...
As for the book I took this very episode from: I do consider it remarkable especially as its translator (Richard Wilhelm) explicitly says that very probably not every anecdote can / should be ascribed to Zhuangzi, himself.
Which is why to me it seems to be both a very humble and acribic attempt to introduce 'Western readers' to Chinese philosophy.
Thanks for clarifying the origin of the text. I knew it was oriental but I thought Zhuangzi was a fictional character, not a Chinese philosopher. Googling the name revealed fascinating informations, and 2-3 tales of wisdom. Of course, apart from a bit of Confucius, I know very little about Chinese thinking. I'm grateful for your posts. :)
ReplyDeleteClaudia,
ReplyDeletewhen tinking of China, one should not only think of Confucius. :)