Translations of the Dao De Jing • Hacker News Board

Re: Translations of the Dao De Jing

#31

Post by madhadron » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 5:02 AM UTC

crooked-v wrote: post #25

youzicha wrote: post #24

Oh, let me plug Peter Boodberg's startlingly bizzare version, which begins "Lodehead lodehead-brooking : no forwonted lodehead"... It's such an alien approach to translation, you can see his logic, but the end product looks like something from a Markov chain. https://youzicha.tumblr.com/post/142657117089/philological-n... http://www.jstor.org/stable/2718364?s

While the analysis is interesting, the resulting "translation" is useless nonsense.

Odd. I looked at it and thought it was a brilliant use of English, on par with anything James Joyce did.

Re: Translations of the Dao De Jing

#32

Post by blacksmith_tb » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 5:14 AM UTC

Surprised not to see David Hinton's[1] fine translation[2] mentioned, it has a playful quality that I think suits Taoism better than many of the more traditional translations.

1: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/david-hinton

2: https://www.davidhinton.net/tao-te-ching-sample-poems

Re: Translations of the Dao De Jing

#33

Post by davidgould » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 5:24 AM UTC

kwelstr wrote: post #26

contingencies wrote: post #15

A page about hair-splitting on translations of a philosophy whose chapter one paragraph one states the notion isn't possible to convey in words! The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. The named is the mother of ten thousand things. Ever desireless, one can see the mystery. Ever desiring, one can see the ma…

That has always been my favorite translation, by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English, and the book is beautifully illustrated. https://www.amazon.com/Ching-25th-Anniversary-English-Mandar...

I love this translation. I first read it in the 1970s as a young person and it had a big influence on my life. I can think of only a handful of books that really soak into your being and way seeing. I’ve probably forgotten almost all the text, but still find trying to recreate the feeling/attitude inspired by the book rewarding and useful, especially to cope with adversity and frustration. I recommend reading it in small pieces and using the sparse layout and misty landscape photographs to help absorb the Dao by osmosis rather than by attempting to overthink the text.

Re: Translations of the Dao De Jing

#34

Post by jbossmann » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 6:51 AM UTC

jarnagin wrote: post #18

Ursula LeGuin has also published a nonliteral interpretation of the Tao Te Ching (derived from the work of several Chinese-to-English translations) that is absolutely wonderful. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07C2WJQNM/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...

Seconding LeGuin's translation. It has a poetic quality to it.

Re: Translations of the Dao De Jing

#35

Post by dvfjsdhgfv » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 7:13 AM UTC

contingencies wrote: post #15

A page about hair-splitting on translations of a philosophy whose chapter one paragraph one states the notion isn't possible to convey in words! The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. The named is the mother of ten thousand things. Ever desireless, one can see the mystery. Ever desiring, one can see the ma…

I think it's quite useful anyway, to see all these translation efforts - you can compare them to fingers pointing at the moon.

Re: Translations of the Dao De Jing

#36

Post by abrezas » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 8:37 AM UTC

contingencies wrote: post #15

A page about hair-splitting on translations of a philosophy whose chapter one paragraph one states the notion isn't possible to convey in words! The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. The named is the mother of ten thousand things. Ever desireless, one can see the mystery. Ever desiring, one can see the ma…

It does try to convey something in words in the next chapters, no?

Re: Translations of the Dao De Jing

#37

Post by mrob » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 8:57 AM UTC

cocacola1 wrote: post #7

acabal wrote: post #5

Shameless plug, the free Standard Ebooks edition of the Legge translation: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/laozi/tao-te-ching/james-l...

Your site has been one of my favorite finds of this decade. Thank you for the fantastic work.

Although the ebooks are generally good quality, the spelling and grammar are in many cases (deliberately) changed from the original. When I read a book I want to read the words of the original author, not a modernized version. It would be nice if you could download versions without the "[Editorial]" changes.

Re: Translations of the Dao De Jing

#38

Post by nicky0 » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 8:59 AM UTC

abrezas wrote: post #36

contingencies wrote: post #15

A page about hair-splitting on translations of a philosophy whose chapter one paragraph one states the notion isn't possible to convey in words! The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. The named is the mother of ten thousand things. Ever desireless, one can see the mystery. Ever desiring, one can see the ma…

It does try to convey something in words in the next chapters, no?

Well it tries yes.

Re: Translations of the Dao De Jing

#39

Post by aandrieiev » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 9:17 AM UTC

The problem with translating any Chinese classics lays in their multi-layered meaning. Old Chinese literature is complicated because every author expected that the reader was accustomed to volumes of other classics and could comprehend all the references to them hidden in the text. No matter how many good translations we have, they will not help us resolve this issue. Furthermore, understanding Dao De Jing is problematic even for native speakers of Chinese, because they do not have proper educational background to comprehend what ideas the author wanted to convey even being able (as they think) to read the original text!

Re: Translations of the Dao De Jing

#40

Post by Double_a_92 » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 9:56 AM UTC

mrob wrote: post #37

cocacola1 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your site has been one of my favorite finds of this decade. Thank you for the fantastic work.

Although the ebooks are generally good quality, the spelling and grammar are in many cases (deliberately) changed from the original. When I read a book I want to read the words of the original author, not a modernized version. It would be nice if you could download versions without the "[Editorial]" changes.

So you'd like to read it in ancient chinese? Or a word-by-word literal translation of it?

There are always going to be some changes in grammar...