“Repeatedly shuttled from one side of the empire to the other, members of this class tended to cling to the contacts they had established in the course of their official careers” civil servants are still like this
“City of the Brocade Officer” I wonder if this is sort of civil service specific, like what THEY call it “The cypresses were popularly supposed to have been planted by Chu-ko Liang himself.” Nineteen Old Poems taught me to associate the cypress with grave sites, so the interred having planted them beforehand feels weird
“Yìng can mean ‘cast a shadow’, ‘make a reflection’, or ‘shine on’, these three functions being not very precisely distinguished in Chinese usage.” The ambiguity of these functions is gonna be an important source of contention when we get to Wang Wei’s Deer Park and how it’s translated into English
“The oriole ‘has a lovely voice’ (i.e. sings beautifully) ‘in vain’ (literally ‘emptily’) because there is no one there to hear it. The grass wears its spring colours ‘for itself’ because there is no one there to look at it. ” So like, virtue unregarded and unrewarded?
“At the time Chu-ko Liang was living in retirement in a cottage on Sleeping Dragon Hill in Honan, and the soldier-adventurer Liu Pei, who had come to call on him and ask him to be his adviser, was subjected to a series of deliberate snubs designed to test his seriousness of purpose. Liu Pei countered with such humility and persistence that Chu-ko Liang finally gave him his wholehearted support and helped him to carve out an empire for himself in the south-west. ‘His late Majesty,’ says Chu-ko Liang in the proclamation, ‘utterly disregarding my humble status, thrice called on me in my thatched abode to consult me about the state of the empire” uh this is really cute?
“Even in Modern Chinese, simple predication can be used to express a causal relationship. For example, you can say: ‘His doing this is he doesn’t love her any more’ where in English we should have to say ‘is because he doesn’t love her any more’, or ‘shows that he doesn’t love her any more’.” Oh, you know, I think we’ve run into this verb elision in translation issues before
“Jīn: The Chinese word means that part of the dress which covers the chest. I think ‘bosom’ is the best we can do with it in English, though in fact it means part of the clothing, not part of the body.” Is it more ‘bodice’?
Re: 16. 蜀相 Shǔ xiàng
“City of the Brocade Officer” I wonder if this is sort of civil service specific, like what THEY call it
“The cypresses were popularly supposed to have been planted by Chu-ko Liang himself.” Nineteen Old Poems taught me to associate the cypress with grave sites, so the interred having planted them beforehand feels weird
“Yìng can mean ‘cast a shadow’, ‘make a reflection’, or ‘shine on’, these three functions being not very precisely distinguished in Chinese usage.” The ambiguity of these functions is gonna be an important source of contention when we get to Wang Wei’s Deer Park and how it’s translated into English
“The oriole ‘has a lovely voice’ (i.e. sings beautifully) ‘in vain’ (literally ‘emptily’) because there is no one there to hear it. The grass wears its spring colours ‘for itself’ because there is no one there to look at it. ” So like, virtue unregarded and unrewarded?
“At the time Chu-ko Liang was living in retirement in a cottage on Sleeping Dragon Hill in Honan, and the soldier-adventurer Liu Pei, who had come to call on him and ask him to be his adviser, was subjected to a series of deliberate snubs designed to test his seriousness of purpose. Liu Pei countered with such humility and persistence that Chu-ko Liang finally gave him his wholehearted support and helped him to carve out an empire for himself in the south-west. ‘His late Majesty,’ says Chu-ko Liang in the proclamation, ‘utterly disregarding my humble status, thrice called on me in my thatched abode to consult me about the state of the empire” uh this is really cute?
“Even in Modern Chinese, simple predication can be used to express a causal relationship. For example, you can say: ‘His doing this is he doesn’t love her any more’ where in English we should have to say ‘is because he doesn’t love her any more’, or ‘shows that he doesn’t love her any more’.” Oh, you know, I think we’ve run into this verb elision in translation issues before
“Jīn: The Chinese word means that part of the dress which covers the chest. I think ‘bosom’ is the best we can do with it in English, though in fact it means part of the clothing, not part of the body.” Is it more ‘bodice’?