tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Mar 03 06:16:18 2003

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Re: Tao Te Ching Chp. 25

>chuSHa' 'ej chIm.
>Soundless and void,

ja' DloraH:

>I know we have /tam/, but I read "quiet and empty" If "soundless" is 
>important, perhaps -chu' could bring this closer.
>chuSHa'chu' 'ej chIm.

DuH <tam>, DuH <chuSHa'chu'> je.
'ach jIchIDnIS: jaS tlheghvam vImugh vIneH.
What I'd really like to get would translate into English as

    "So silent, so void"
    (Chin. ji xi liao xi - silent/oh!/empty/oh!)

Perhaps that effect could be achieved by adding either {-chu'}

     tamchu', chImchu'.
     (perfectly silent, perfectly empty)

or the emphatic {-qu'}.

     tamqu', chImqu'.

I'm afraid though the latter might only be understood as "very quiet, very 
empty".

>mobtaHvIS choHbe'.
>ghoStaHvIS mevbe'.
>Standing alone, unchanging,
>Ever in motion, unceasing.

>How about -taHmo' instead of -taHvIS?
>
>mobtaHmo' choHbe'.
>ghoStaHmo' mevbe'.

DuHbe'. cha' Dotlh Del China chovnatlh. Dotlh cha'DIch qaSmoHbe' Dotlh 
wa'DIch.

This won't do. The text merely lists the properties of Tao. No causal 
relation between them is implied.

>Or just simply two sentences each.
>
>mob; choHbe'.
>ghoS; mevbe'.

Dun qechvam. nap.
I put {-taHvIS} on the first verb because these two lines are one of the 
extremely few places where the author/s/ of Tao Te Ching saw it fit to 
actually use a conjuction, such as "er" (and, but). (Admittedly, the first 
"er" appears only in some versions.)

    du li (*er*) bu gai,
    zhou xing *er* bu dai,

Perhaps I should have used {'ej}. I didn't because these lines are diffent 
from the preceding one, where I had already used {'ej} - possibly 
mistakenly. Maybe I should go for {'ach} or maybe I should adopt your 
succint suggestion, which seems as beautifully simple as Tao itself ;-)


>'u'Daq Dun loSvam'e'.
>DunwI' je ghaH nuv'e'.
>These four are great in the universe
>and mankind is one of them.

ghItlh DloraH:

>Canon:
    >>>>
   >reH tay' ghot tuqDaj je.
   >One is always of his tribe.
   >("A person and his house are always together.")
    <<<
>or maybe /tlhej/

>/'ej tay' ghomvam nuv je/

Hmm, the way I see it this sentence says "This group (i.e. the great fours) 
and mankind are together". This is not quite what I'm aiming for, which is 
"mankind is one of them (i.e one of the group of the great four). Perhaps I 
could use {ghom} in the following way:

    'ej ghomvam 'ay' ghaH nuv'e'

qatlho' DloraH. batlh bIchup.

'ISqu'


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