張旭 Zhang Xu: 桃花谿 The Peach-Blossom Brook

The anthology "300 Tang Poems" features only one single poem by Zhang Xu who was more famous for his cursive (草書, characters executed swiftly and with strokes flowing together) calligraphy than his poetry.  But the subject matter referred to in the poem is of great interest.  It is the story of a fisherman who found and lost his paradise of peach blossoms as told by the Jin 晉 dynasty poet Tao Qian 陶潛 or Tao Yuanming 陶淵明 (365-427) in his "The Peach-Blossom Springs: Poem and Chronicle" 桃花源：詩並記.  Please find the story in my Note on the Title.  Here goes my rendition of the poem:-

Zhang Xu (circa 711):  The Peach-Blossom Brook

1 In haze there hangs a beam bridge, the wilderness fog here ends;

2   By the west of a boulder, a fisher, to my query his ear he lends---

3   Down this clear brook from paradise, peach petals drift all day, but

4  Where is that cave, its gateway, ‘long the brook’s braes and bends?

Translated by Andrew W.F. Wong (Huang Hongfa)   譯者: 黃宏發

17^th April 2013 (revised 23.4.13; 25.4.13; 29.4.13; 29.5.13)
Translated from the original - 張旭:  桃花谿

1  隱隱飛橋隔野烟

2  石璣西畔問漁船

3  桃花盡日隨流水

4  洞在清溪何處邊

Notes:

*    This English rendition is in hexameter (6 metrical feet) while the original is in 7-character lines.  The rhyme scheme is AAXA as in the original.

*    Title:  桃花 rendered as “peach-blossom” (in the title) and as “peach petals” (in line 3) and the word 洞 “cave” in line 4 of the poem clearly indicate this poem follows from a much earlier poem and, particularly, its chronicle, i.e. the 桃花源：詩並記 “The Peach-Blossom Springs: Poem and Chronicle” by 陶淵明 Tao Yuanming (365-427) of the 晉 Jin dynasty.  Tao’s chronicle tells of a fisherman who followed through a “peach- blossom” grove to the source springs of the brook or stream, found a “cave” and went through it to discover a “paradise” of a land whose people had been living there happily since 5 centuries ago completely cut off from the outside world.  After enjoying their warm hospitality for a few days, he left, marking his way out, thinking he could always return, but was never able to find his way again.  The poem is about the people and their life in that heaven on earth.  I had originally rendered 谿 (in the title) and 溪 (in line 4) as “stream” but have now decided for “brook”

*    Line 1:  (a) 隱隱飛橋:  I had considered “half-hidden” or “haze-hidden” (for the “h” alliteration) and “haze-veiled” or “veiled in haze” (for the “ei” assonance) to translate 隱隱 but have now decided for the simple “in haze”.  I have taken 飛, literally “fly”, to figuratively mean “high/tall” but have, instead of using any such words, rendered the idea of 飛 as “hangs”.  I take this “high” bridge to be a beam bridge spanning from one side of the brook or stream (probably a ravine) to the other, hence, “there hangs a beam bridge”.  I hope the “h” alliteration in “haze” and “hangs” proves adequate to represent the beauty of the reiterative 隐隱.  (b) 隔野煙:  I have taken 隔 to primarily mean 阻隔 “cut off’ and not 分隔 “divide”.  The latter gives a visually impossible picture of a hazy bridge “dividing” the fog/mist/haze in the wilderness into 2 halves, to the left and right.  The former, on the other hand, gives a clear foreground of a stream, a hazy bridge in the middle, and a background of a blurred, misty, foggy wilderness.  I had considered translating 野煙 as “foggy wilderness” but have decided to stick to the literal “wilderness fog”..

*    Line 2:  I had considered interpreting 石磯西畔 as “boulder on the west bank (of the stream)” but have decided for “west of a boulder (whether on the east bank or mid-stream)”.  I have turned 問 “I ask a question” to “he listens to my question”, hence, “to my query his ear he lends”.  I could have followed Shakespeare’s “lend me your ears” (Mark Antony’s famous speech in “Julius Caesar”) and used the plural “ears” but have decided to follow my friend Barry Dalton’s advice to stick to the proverbial “lend an ear” in the singular.  漁船 is rendered as “fisher” which, though means “fisherman”, can also mean “fishing boat”. 

*    Line 3:  In order to make clear the meaning of the poem, I have added the word “paradise” (not in the original), which idea (of a “heaven on earth”) is the essence of the poem,  I have, therefore, rendered 隨 as “drift” and 流水 as “down this (clear) brook” with “from paradise” added and have translated 桃花盡日 literally as “peach petals” and “all day”.  The word “clear” 清 (shown in parenthesis above) is moved up from line 4 where I can find no space for it, as explained in the note below.

*    Line 4:  As the poem is about a man on the same quest as the Jin dynasty fisherman   in Tao’s chronicle, I find it necessary to build  into the line the idea that the “cave” 洞  is the “way in” 入口  for which  I had considered variously “entrance”, “entry”, “passage”, “portal”, etc. and have now decided for “gateway” and have rendered the word 洞 as “that cave, its gateway”.  In order to complete the “ends-lends” rhyme,  After considering adding either “ascends” or “bends” (neither word in the original) and penned the second half of the line as “as my boat on the clear brook ascends” (with “boat” and “ascends” added) or “’long the clear brook’s banks and bends” (with only “bends” added) so as to cover 清溪  “clear brook”, I have decided to move the idea of “clear” 清 to line 3 to read “Down this clear brook”.  Hence, for this second half of line 4, I have decided for “’long(=along) the brook’s braes(=banks) and bends”.   For 何處邊 I had originally leaned toward 何邊 “which bank/side” as the primary meaning but have now decided for 何處 “where” which, in colloquial Cantonese, is 邊處.  Although I suspect the poet might have added 邊 just to complete his rhyme, I have retained the “bank/side” idea in “braes and bends”.  My rendering the “where” idea as “… but (line 3)/ Where is … (line 4)” makes it possible for “Where” to be read accented to represent a plain question but also for “is” to be accented, instead, to show frustration or scepticism.  This retains the ambiguity of the original.    

李白 Li Bai: 望天門山 View of Tianmen Mountain

We are back to Li Bai again.  This is a beautiful little poem I translated some 3 years ago, which has never seen the light of day.  Here we go.  Let us enjoy it.  And share with me your views kind or otherwise.

Li Bai (701-762): View of Tianmen Mountain

1  Through Tianmen’s twin-peak portal, the mighty River churns;

2  East rolls its water all turquoise, till here, its course it turns.

3  Why, green cliffs burst into sight, on banks both left and right;

4  From afar where the sun adjourns, O my solitary sail returns.

Translated by Andrew W.F. Wong (Huang Hongfa)   譯者:黃宏發

4^th June 2010 (revised 11.6.10; polished 2.5.13)
Translated from the original - 李白:  望天門山

1  天門中斷楚江開

2  碧水東流至此回

3  兩岸青山相對出

4  孤帆一片日邊來

Notes:

*    This English rendition is in hexameter (6 metrical feet) while the original is in 7-character lines.  The rhyme scheme is AAXA as in the original.

*    Title and line 1:  天門, literally “Heavenly/Heaven’s Portal” is  the name of a 山 “Mountain”, hence “Tianmen Mountain” in the title.  In line 1, it is simply rendered as “Tianmen(‘s)” with the ideas of “heaven” and “mountain” covered in my rendering 中斷 as “twin-peak portal”.  The said mountain, in present day Anhui 安徽 Province, assumes the appearance of being “cut” 斷 in the “middle” 中 into two peaks by the “Long” 長 (or “Yangzi” 揚子) “River” 江.  The 楚江 “Chu River” referred to in the poem was the name of this section of the Long River.  I have translated 開 (meaning open/break open) as “through” and have picked “churns” both for the meaning of agitated water movement and for the rhyme.

*    Line 2:  For 碧 I had considered variously “aquamarine”, “aqua”, “bluish”, “aqua-blue”, "of turquoise" and "a-turquoise" but have now decided  for “all turquoise”.  回 here does not mean “return” but should be taken as 迴 which means “turn/twist/meander”.  I had considered “the river-course turns”, “it meanders, it turns”, “it meanders and turns”, “meandering, it turns” and “due north it turns”, but have now decided for “its course it turns”.

*    Line 3:  This is a motion picture of sailing downstream (generally eastwards) on the Long River through Tianmen Mountain passing cliff after cliff.  相對 (facing) 出 (appear/emerge) should be visualized not as cliffs facing each other but as facing the sailboat and its passenger and is, therefore, rendered as “burst (or thrust/rush) into sight”.

*    Line 4:  日邊 is open to interpretation.  Although I do not believe it means where the sun rises or sets, but simply “far/afar/faraway” and is equivalent to 天邊/際 (literally the fringe/edge of the sky/heaven), I have nonetheless added “where the sun adjourns” (to stand for the west from where the poet sailed) for the internal rhyme of “adjourns-returns” to parallel the internal rhyme of “sight-right” in line 3.  來 which means "come/arrive" is narrowed down to mean 回來 "returns" both for the rhyme and for the mood of returning to a land of the poet's pleasant memories.

岑參 Cen Shen: 逢入京使 On Meeting an Official Courier to the Capital

First, yesterday was the day of the traditional Chinese festival of 清明 Qingming.  This year it happens to fall on the 4th (rather than the usual 5th) day of April.  This has prompted me to make some revisions to my rendition of a 杜牧 Du Mu poem entitled 清明 "Qingming" which I posted here 3 years ago in April 2010.  The most significant change is in the title and the first line.  The title now reads "Qingming, Early April" instead of "Qingming, the Fifth of April" and line 1, therefore, reads "It is Qingming, early April, a season of mizzles and gloom".  I have now taken away reference to 5th day but have retained the solar month of April.  Please visit:  http://chinesepoemsinenglish.blogspot.hk/2010_04_01_archive.html

Now, for this month, I am posting my latest translation completed only a week ago.  This is a beautiful quatrain by Tang dynasty poet 岑参 Cen Shen (7 poems collected in the classic anthology "300 Tang Poems"), particularly famous for his frontier poems.  

This is a very simple poem about a man going to the frontier (to war?), meeting on his way a courier returning from the frontier and asking this courier to tell his family that he is safe.  It is, therefore, important that the words 龍鍾 should not be taken as "old" or "senile" which is the definition in (I think) all Chinese-English dictionaries (this being the prime and usual meaning), but should be understood in the context of the whole poem and particularly of line 2 itself.  The 雙袖 "pair of sleeves" in 雙袖龍鍾 should be understood literally and not be taken as a metonymy for the pair of arms as soon as we know 龍鍾 can also and should, in this context, mean "wet/dampened".  I am afraid the great Chinese translator 許淵沖 Prof. Xu Yuanzhong (XYZ) might have slipped in translating line 2 as "My old arms tremble and my sleeves are wet with tears" (on p. 202 of Xu, Loh, Wu (eds) "300 Tang Poems: A New Translation" Commercial Press 1987) in which he has covered "sleeves" but has, in addition, probably used it to stand for "arms".   

I will leave it to you readers of this poem to share with Cen Shen his "tears" on "sleeves" (with no handkerchief in hand) which I hope I have kept within limits with the words "sleeves all dampened" and "tears still rolling away".   I had originally penned "My pair of sleeves all dampened" as "My sleeves are all but dampened", but have now found this too controlled, too dry, thanks to the views of my pub friend Mr. Barry Allan Dalton, English Language and Literature master of the St. Rose of Lima's College, Sha Tin, Hong Kong.  Cen Shen, here we go.

Cen Shen (715-770):  On Meeting an Official Courier to the Capital

1        East I look to my homestead, O long, long is the way; 

2        My pair of sleeves all dampened, my tears still rolling away.

3        Here we meet on horseback, no paper nor pen in hand,     

4        So I say: I’m safe and well, sir--- O, tell them this, I pray.

Translated by Andrew W.F. Wong (Huang Hongfa)    譯者: 黃宏發

21^st March 2013 (revised 22.3.13; 24.3.13; 25.3.13; 26.3.13; 27.3.13)
Translated from the original - 岑參:  逢入京使

1        故園東望路漫漫

2        雙袖龍鍾淚不乾

3        馬上相逢無纸筆

4        憑君傳語報平安

Notes:

*    This English rendition is in hexameter (6 metrical feet) while the original is in 7-character lines.  The rhyme scheme is AAXA as in the original.

*    Line 1:  For 故園 which is literally “old fields” but meaning “home”, I have come to consider “homestead” to be most appropriate as this word means “the place of one’s home; the town/village where one’s dwelling is; a dwelling; a house with its dependent buildings … esp(ecially) a farm-stead”.  (Shorter Oxford)  I can of course change it to the more literal “home fields” but would rather not as it is a bit too pompous.  For 東 in 東望, I had considered variously “Eastwards”, “Back east”, “Due east” and have now decided for the simple “East”, hence “East I look”.   I had considered using “road” to translate 路 but have decided for “way”  in order to make the “way, away, pray” rhyme possible.  It appears “O long, long is the way is preferable to “long, O long is the way” as the former sounds a bit longer.

*    Line 2:  龍鍾 should not be taken to mean “old” or “senile”.  The poem is about a man sent and on his way to the western frontier, and this context dictates that he cannot be too old.  I have, therefore, adopted the meaning of 沾濡濕潤 “wet” (definition “1-3” in the Chinese dictionary 辭源) and have rendered it as “all dampened”.  I had considered but rejected other formulations such as “soaked and drenched” and “drenched and dripping”.  For 雙袖 I had considered variously “My sleeves”, “My two sleeves”, “Both my sleeves” and “My sleeves both” but have now decided for the most literal “My pair of sleeves”.  I beg to invoke poetic licence for omitting, in the interest of brevity, the 2 verbs “sleeves [are] all dampened” and “tears still [keep] rolling” in the first and second halves of the line respectively.  

*    Line 3:  I had considered the addition of the 2 ideas of “happen or chance to (meet)” and “(meet) here” which are logically implied in the words 相逢 of the original , i.e. “We chance to meet here (on horseback)”, but have decided to keep it simple and have dropped the “chance” idea, hence, simply “Here we meet on horseback”.  For 無纸筆 I had considered “no paper nor brush” as the Chinese pen is technically a “brush”, but have chosen “no paper nor pen” as I take “pen” to be generic of “brush” and for the rather poetic “p” alliteration          

*    Line 4: 平安, being the message to be conveyed, is rendered as “safe and well” (over “safe and sound”) and is advanced to the forefront.  憑君傳語報, being the request for the spoken message to be conveyed, is rendered as “So I say … sir” and “O, tell them this, I pray”.  I had originally penned the line as “Sir, I’m safe, I’m sound, I say, please tell them this, I pray”, but have now, after a couple of revisions, decided for “So I say: I’m safe and well, sir--- O, tell them this, I pray”.

張九齡 Zhang Jiuling: 自君之出矣 Since from Home You Departed

For those of you who visit my blog regularly, you must have been surprised to find my last 2 monthly posts were more didactic than poetic.  They were Chapters 17 and 49 of Lao Zi's Dao De Jing which have to do with the question of "trust" that I had to talk about late last year at an academic conference.  I would love to carry on with Lao Zi and do have a few more chapters readily translated but will stop, if not at least for the time being, as visitor statistics are just holding good, if not falling.

I will, therefore, in this post return to poetry (my poetry?) by giving you my rendition of a truly beautiful little quatrain by Zhang Jiuling 張九齢, contemporary of but slightly preceding Wang Wei 王維, Li Bai 李白 and Du Fu 杜甫.  This poem, like many Chinese poems, refers to the moon but (unlike Wang Wei's moon in his 竹里館 which is bright and solacing, Li bai's moon in his 夜思(靜夜思) whose brightness brings him home and Du Fu's moon in his 月夜 which shines on his wife and children away in refuge from the capital) Zhang Jiuling's moon is a full moon waning, a moon losing its lustre nightly.

For those of you who like my renditions of Lao Zi, I hope you will like this too.

Zhang Jiuling (678-740):  Since from Home You Departed

1        E'er since from home my lord departed,

2        I’ve left untouched my weaving loom.

3        Like the full moon, O I long for you,  

4        Nightly it wanes while I waste in gloom.

Translated by Andrew W.F. Wong (Huang Hongfa)      譯者; 黃宏發

18^th June 2012 (revised 19.6.12; 9.8.12)
Translated from the original - 張九齡:  自君之出矣

1        自君之出矣

2        不復理殘機

3        思君如滿月

4        夜夜減清輝

Notes:

*    This English rendition is in tetrameter (4 metrical feet) while the original is in 5-character lines.  The rhyme scheme is XAXA as in the original.  I am grateful to Xu Yuanzhong (also known as XYZ) (p. 45 of his “Bilingual Edition 300 Tang Poems”, Beijing: Higher Education Press, 2000) for the “loom, gloom” rhyme.

*    Lines 1 and 3:  I have taken the poem to be addressed to the husband/lover as seen in the use (in both lines 1 and 3) of the word 君 which is a polite way of saying “you” or addressing a person, and here that person is the “husband/lover”.  To translate 君, I have used “my lord” in line 1 and “you” in line 3   I had considered but rejected “E'er since from home, my lord, you departed” as I find “E'er since from home my lord departed” more than adequate in the context.  I had considered "O since" but have decided for "E'er since".  If the word "lord" is considered archaic, it can be replaced by "love".

*    Line 2:  殘 (“remaining”, not “broken/derelict”) 機 (“machine”, specifically “loom”) here means “unfinished/incomplete cloth/fabric remaining on the loom” and is simply translated as “weaving loom”.

*    Lines 3 and 4:  I had considered adding “’Tis” (line 3) and “O” (line 4) to these 2 lines to give them daDUM iambic openings but have decided for the DUMda trochees.  .

*    Line 4:  夜夜減清輝 which literally means “night by night, reducing its clear lustre” is translated without the words “clear lustre” as the meaning is covered by the word “wanes” at least insofar as the “full moon” is concerned.  I had originally penned the line as “O waning night by night in gloom” or “O waning and wasting nightly in gloom” (given the need of “gloom” to complete the rhyme) but have decided otherwise because the word “gloom” does not seem to go well with the “full moon”.  This simile of “the waning full moon”, which metaphorically also alludes to the lady, is now made explicit by the addition of “while I waste in gloom” to “Nightly it wanes”.  The word “waste” means “to lose strength, health or vitality, to lose flesh, to pine, to decay”. (Shorter Oxford Dictionary)  The loss of the of the alliteration of 夜夜 in my rendering it as "Nightly", instead of "Night by night", is somewhat compensated by the alliteration of "wane ...while...waste".    

老子 Lao Zi: 道德經 49章 Dao De Jing Chapter 49 (Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching 49)

Last month, January, I posted here on this blog Chapter 17 of Lao Zi's Dao De Jing.  I said I have now attempted my own translation of it because I was invited to speak at a Conference on Trust Building and Governance in Hong Kong and Macau organized by the Hong Kong Institute of Education some time last October and I decided to use some parts of the Dao De Jing.  The key word I used was 信 which I have translated as "trust".  In my last month's post, what Lao Zi had to say, as I see it, is "It is the ruler's lack of trust in the people that creates their mistrust."

Today, I am posting Lao Zi's Chapter 49 which I also referred to at the Conference.    The key word is again 信 "trust" and the relevant lines are 6, 7 and 8 which I have rendered as "He trusts in those who are trustworthy,/ He trusts also in those who are not, thus/ Trust obtains."  Please refer to my notes to see why I have rendered 吾 "I" as "He".  I have also discussed in my notes the word 德 "virtue" which I have taken to be 得 "attain/achieve/obtain" and which I have rendered as "obtains" meaning "prevails/in vogue/holds good, etc."  Here is the genius of Lao Zi.  He was saying "Only by trusting also in those who are not trustworthy, at least trusting in the possibility they can become trustworthy, that trust can be built."  Some say he is wise, some say, mad.  But just give this some thought: "Let he who has never
betrayed, nor will ever betray his trust, throw the first piece of stone!"    

Lao Zi (circa 500 BCE):  Dao De Jing Chapter 49

(Lao Tzu:  Tao Te Ching 49)

1        The sage ruler has no cravings of his own,

2        He takes as his own the cravings of the people.

3        He is good to those who are good,

4        He is also good to those who are not, thus     

5        Goodness obtains.

6        He trusts in those who are trustworthy,

7        He trusts also in those who are not, thus    

8        Trust obtains.

9        In ruling the world, the sage restrains himself;  

10     For its sake, he muddles his own cravings.

11     The people’s eyes and ears are all focused on his rule,

12     The sage regards them all as innocent babies.

Translated by Andrew W.F. Wong (Huang Hongfa)      譯者: 黃宏發

21^st November 2012
Translated from the original - 老子:  道德經  49章

1        聖人無常心，

2        以百姓心為心。

3        善者吾善之，

4        不善者吾亦善之，

5        德善。

6    信者吾信之，

7        不信者吾亦信之，

8        德信。

9       聖人在天下歙歙焉，

10     為天下渾其心。

11     百姓皆注其耳目，

12     聖人皆孩之。

Notes:

*    Line 1:  I have considered “heart”, “mind” and “aspirations” to translate 心 but have decided for “cravings”.  I am inclined not to take 常心 as a special term as 無常心 is probably a corruption of the Ma Wang Dui (MWD)馬王堆version of 恆無心 and, hence, 常無心  the 2 words 恆 and 常 being coterminous meaning “always” .  Some other versions have it simply as 無心 “no craving” to mean 無私心 “no selfish craving”,  hence, my translation “no cravings of his own”.

*    Lines 3, 4, 6 and 7:  All 4 lines have been translated in accordance with the MWD version which does not contain the word 吾 “I”, hence, rendered here in the third person “he”.

*    Lines 3 through 8:  德 in the context of both 德善 (line 5) and 德信 ( line 8), literally “virtue”, should be taken to stand for its homophone 得 “acquire/obtain/attain”.  With the first person 吾 “I” in lines 3, 4, 6 and 7 deleted (as discussed in the preceding note), I am inclined to interpret lines 5 and 8 as: not just the ruler, but the state/world as a whole, or in other words, both the ruler and the people attaining the virtues of “goodness” and “trust”, hence, my rendition “thus Goodness obtains” and “thus Trust obtains”.  “To obtain” here means “to prevail, to be in force or in vogue; to hold good, have place, subsist, or exist.”  (Shorter Oxford Dictionary)  If one feels odd about the word “obtains”, one can always use such expressions as “prevails”, “emerges”, “holds good”, “comes into currency”, etc. or simply “there is goodness/trust”.  I have added the word “thus” (not in the original) to end lines 4 and 7 to make my interpretation of this chapter crystal clear: it is only by being good also to the bad and by trusting also in the untrustworthy that goodness and trust can emerge.
  

*    Lines 9 and 10:  I have taken 歙 in 歙歙焉 to mean 收縮 (shrink), hence, 收斂 (restrain) and my rendition of “restrains himself”.  Although, in line 10, the word 其 in 渾其心 is missing in the MWD manuscripts, I have nonetheless retained it and have, unlike most other translators, taken it to refer to the heart/cravings of the ruler, and not of the people, echoing the “no cravings of his own” sentiments in line 1.

*    Line 11:  I have added “on his rule” (not in the original) as the people’s watchful eyes and ears must be on whether the ruler’s rule is good, not just 劉殿爵 D.C. Lau’s “all have something to attach their eyes and ears” or  辜正坤 Gu Zhengkun’s “are all preoccupied with their eyes and ears”.

*    Line 12:  I had considered but rejected “The sage treats them all as children” which is literal but, at best, ambiguous and, at worst, misleading.  I have now decided to use “regards” instead of “treats” and “babies” instead of “children” with the adjective “innocent” (not in the original) added to make plain the people’s cravings, like the baby’s cravings, are (or, at least, can be) basic, instinctual and innocent.

      

老子 Lao Zi: 道德經 17章 Dao De Jing Chapter 17 (Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching 17)

Wishing you a most successful 2013!  At this new year, I am posting a piece very different from the ones I have been posting in the last 5 years.  Today, I am posting Chapter 17 of 老子 Lao Zi (Lao Tzu)'s 道德經 Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching) which begins with 太上下知有之 "Best of all, the ruler is only known to be there."

Unlike the lyricism of the quatrains and long-short-line verses I have been posting, the Dao De Jing is philosophical, political and didactic, being (in my view, at least) practical advice to those who are in authority.  

Although the Dao De Jing is largely rhymed (e.g. the word 之 ending the first 4 lines and the 焉、言、然 of the next 4 lines) probably in order to ease memorization, there is no systematic rhyme scheme to speak of and it is, therefore, more prose than poetry.

For these reasons, I have decided to adopt free verse (or perhaps just prose divided into lines) in my rendition of Lao Zi's Dao De Jing.

I had for long been preaching Chapter 17 and others in my speeches and lectures before my retirement. Last October, I was invited by the Hong Kong Institute of Education to speak at their Conference on "Trust Building and Governance in Hong Kong and Macau".  The main thrust of my presentation was line 5.  As the session was held in English, I used Stephen Mitchell's translation which goes "If you don't trust the people, you make them untrustworthy."  This I changed, according to my interpretation, into "If you don't trust the people, the people will not trust you."  劉殿爵 D.C. Lau's has translated the line as "Only when there is not enough faith is there a lack of faith."  This I find too ambiguous.  This is the genesis of my rendition.  I hope you will enjoy it.    

Lao Zi (circa 500 BCE):  Dao De Jing Chapter 17

(Lao Tzu:  Tao Te Ching 17)

1    Best of all, the ruler is only known to be there;

2    Next, he is loved and praised;

3    Further next, he is feared;

4    Furthest down, he is slighted.

5    It is the ruler’s lack of trust in the people that creates their mistrust.

6    He should be cautious and sparing in whatever he says or orders.

7    With good rule established and his task complete,

8    The people will say, “We ourselves have done it so naturally.”

Translated by Andrew W.F. Wong (Huang Hongfa)          譯者: 黃宏發

9^th November 2012
Translated from the original - 老子:  道德經  17章

1    太上，下知有之；

2    其次，親而譽之；

3    其次，畏之；

4    其次，侮之。

5    信不足焉，有不信焉。

6    悠兮其貴言。

7    功成事遂，

8    百姓皆謂我自然。

Notes:

*    I am indeed most grateful to my friend the late Prof. D.C. Lau 劉殿爵 from whose works I have borrowed rather heavily: (1) his rendition of Lao Tzu’s “Tao Te Ching” (Penguin 1963, p.73 for Chapter 17), and (2) his slightly revised rendition of the same (The Chinese University Press, probably 1981, pp. 290-291 for Chapter 17) with the 2 oldest extant Ma Wang Dui (MWD) 馬王堆 manuscripts (unearthed in 1973) covered in the revised translation.

*   The late D.C. Lau’s renditions are the best of all renditions I have encountered.  I have, however, found it necessary to venture my own translation primarily because I wish to attempt to render the work in a less ambiguous manner.  For example, line 5 in Chapter 17 has been rendered by Lau in 1963 as “When there is not enough faith, there is a lack of good faith” and, in the 1980’s, as “Only when there is not enough faith is there a lack of faith”.  These rather literal translations have failed to depict the implicit causal relationship between the ruler and the people.  The line in the context of the whole chapter should, in my view, mean “If the ruler lacks faith in the people, the people will have no faith in him”.  Hence, my “It is the ruler’s lack of trust in the people that creates their mistrust.”

*    Line 1:  I have stuck to the 下知有之 version instead of the 不知有之 and 下不知有之 versions.

*    Line 4:  I have translated the line according to the MWD version of 其下(down) instead of the more popular 其次(next).

*    Line 5:  I have translated the line following Lau’s moving the comma from after to before the first焉 and taking this first 焉 to have a substantive meaning of 乃(be, is; so, therefore) and his punctuating the line after 信不足 with a comma before this first 焉.  The second 焉 at the end of the line remains an “auxiliary word” 助詞/助語詞  meaning 也 or 矣 .  In short, both Lau and myself interpret the line as “信不足，乃(焉)有不信也(焉)”.  That said, even the popular version of “信不足焉，有不信焉” (with both 焉’s taken as auxiliary words meaning 也) is capable of this interpretation.  I have added “ruler” and “people” in the English rendition so as to make clear the message which is central to this whole chapter.

*    Line 6:  I have adopted for my translation the MWD version of 猶 “hesitant” instead of the popular version of 悠 “leisurely” but which can also mean 猶.  While Lau has rendered the line as “Hesitant, he does not utter words lightly”, I find “hesitant” negative and prefer to use “cautious and sparing” partly borrowing from Chapter 23’s concept of 希言 “sparing of words”.  I have added the word “orders” as whatever the ruler “says” would most likely be acted upon by his officials.

*    Line 7:  Although in the MWD manuscripts, 功成事遂  is shown as成功遂事; the 2 versions more or less mean the same.  I have rendered 功成 or 成功 as “good rule is established” to echo and conclude the “best” state of affairs introduced in line 1 where “the ruler is only known to be there”.  I hope this is an acceptable improvement on Lau’s rather literal rendition of “his task is accomplished”.

*    Line 8:  皆 “all” is not translated as I consider it unimportant and is not found in the MWT manuscripts     and some other versions.  我 is translated not simply as “we” but as “we ourselves” so as to emphasize “we the people (not the ruler) have done it”.  自然 is translated as “naturally” in the sense of “in a natural way/manner”.  The word “so” is added so as to exclude from the word “naturally” the meaning of “of course” or “as would be expected” or “needless to say”.