tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jun 17 14:38:14 2003

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RE: Tao Te Ching Chp. 58

chup DloraH:

:How about just using a very vague pronoun as to-be?
:Qughmo' 'oH San Do''e'
:
:Because of disaster, good fortune is.

jIghel:

:bIbej'a'? taQqu'law'.

jang DloraH:

:jIQub, vaj jIH.

I really liked the use of the pronoun {jIH} to mean "I am"
in the translation of Descartes' "I think, therefore I am".
However, I have doubts if I can use {'oH} in the same way
when translating this particular line of TTC:

   Firstly, using {'oH} to mean "is" would give special
prominence to the concept of being, existing. This works
fine for Descartes' maxim, which seems to be about what
makes humans special, what sets them off from the rest of
the world, what makes their existence unlike the existence
of anything else. Now, the line from TTC is not about the
existence of good fortune. To me it seems to be one of the
many comments the book offers on the nature of the world
in which nothing is completely "yang" or completely "yin":
there are seeds of misery in happiness, and conversely,
there are seeds of happiness in misery. In the Chinese
text what good fortune (fu) does is "yi", i.e. "lean on,
depend on" disaster (huo).

   Secondly, using {'oH} would make the sentence marked
and I see no reason to resort to a marked structure in this
particular line.

   Thirdly, before I start using a potentially controversial
structure I'd like to know what makes some users object to it.
When Descartes' maxim was discussed on the list last year, I
discovered that not everyone was happy about {jIQub, vaj jIH}.
During the discussion SuStel applauded Captain Krankor's and
your version and said:

/tlhIngan-Hol/2002/June/msg00464.html:
>Some years ago, I posted the suggestion of
>
>jIQub; vaj jIH.
>
>This was generally not accepted, but for reasons which kind of missed the 
>point.

SuStel didn't say what those reasons were and I haven't
been able to locate the messages. I may or may not find
the counter-arguments valid but at least I'd like to
know them and form an opinion.

jIchup:

: Good fortune springs from disaster.
: Disaster lurks in good fate.

: San Do' mung 'oH Qugh'e'.
: Qugh So' San Do''e'.

ja' DloraH:

:But what I don't like is where the focus is set.
:I suppose the first sentence could be focusing on
:either "good fortune" or "disaster". But to me the
:second sentence sounds like the focus should be on
:disaster". "disaster" is the one doing the action
:(lurking), and "good fate" is an inactive bystander.
:But in the klingon /San Do'/ is doing the action (So'),
:and Qugh is inactive. choyaj'a'?

qayaj 'e' vIHar.

Good point.

:I certainly do not know where the original text sets
:the focus, so I don't know if the problem is the english
:or the klingon.

I agree that disaster seems to the active party here.
However, the focus in the original text is on good fate (fu).
To be more exact, the first of the two lines is about
"huo" – disaster, calamity, terrible fate, misery,
and the second line is about "fu" – happiness, luck, good fortune:

    huo xi, fu zhi suo yi,
    fu xi, huo zhi suo fu.

Some of the English translators unambiguously put the two into focus, e.g.:

D.C. Lau:
   It is on disaster that good fortune perches;
   It is beneath good fortune that disaster crouches.

John Wu:
   Bad fortune is what good fortune leans on,
   Good fortune is what bad fortune hides in.

James Legge:
   Misery! -- happiness is to be found by its side!
   Happiness! -- misery lurks beneath it!

Robert Henricks
   Disaster is that on which good fortune depends.
   Good fortune is that in which disaster's concealed.


Some don't:


Gia-fu Feng and Jane English:
   Happiness is rooted in misery.
   Misery lurks beneath happiness.

Lin Yutang
   Disaster is the avenue of fortune,
    (And) fortune is the concealment for disaster.

It would seem that in terms of marking focus my Klingon translation is 
closer to the Chinese than my English translation.

'ISqu'

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