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Tao Te Ching – Gia-Fu Feng, Jane English Translation (1989)

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Re: Tao Te Ching – Gia-Fu Feng, Jane English Translation (1989)

#71

Post by throwaway626 »

stillconfused wrote: post #31
throwaway626 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She had the humility to admit she knew little about ancient Chinese and the courage to go ahead and venture a translation anyway, striving to touch something deeper than language. Her success is extremely laudable for this reason.

It's great that you've found something you like, but if you are interested in staying close to the text, a translation by a person that deeply understands Classical Chinese literature and philosophy is worth a read. Please try Red Pine- https://www.amazon.com/dp/1556592906 To see the difference, let's compare her translation of 4 and 9 (Here, we have Stephen Mitchell and Red Pine's translations) https://news.ycombina…

I don’t judge scholarly translations by their poetics, so perhaps you shouldn’t judge poetic interpretations by their scholarly merit.

The world is big enough for both.

Re: Tao Te Ching – Gia-Fu Feng, Jane English Translation (1989)

#73

Post by gizajob »

cwmoore wrote: post #42

A cup that cannot be empty cannot be filled.

It’s more like a commentary on the cup being considered as important to us - the material, the container, the craft, the use it brings… but the nothingness inside the cup, the emptiness always there waiting to be filled is as important to the equation of the cup’s being as the material, and the material is fixed and hard, while the emptiness is eternally ready to be shaped by anything that we might wish it to become.

Re: Tao Te Ching – Gia-Fu Feng, Jane English Translation (1989)

#75

Post by hnfong »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #53
namelosw wrote: post #24

I've seen Tao Te Ching's translation on the HN front page for several times. It seems people are interested in it. The thing with Tao Te Ching is it's too ambiguous because: 1) The Chinese language is very overloaded and thus very ambiguous. 2) Classical Chinese is even more so. 3) Tao Te Ching is intentionally filled with clever puns which makes it more ambiguous. The problem with translations is the translator has…

These translations need to provide original Chinese alongside. Otherwise, it is too hard to evaluate. ChatGPT allows everyone to gain their own interpretation.

As it currently stands, ChatGPT is quite bad at classical Chinese.

Re: Tao Te Ching – Gia-Fu Feng, Jane English Translation (1989)

#76

Post by throwaway626 »

imchillyb wrote: post #70
vitiral wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIUC much of the bible's "wisdom" is taken from older root traditions. According to Mitchell's (the same Mitchell, he IS an expert in ancient Hebrew) translation of Job the entire book isn't even about a Jew but is far older.

Ecclesiastes was written by King Solomon, King David's son. The wisdom of Solomon was so great, the Queen of Bathsheeba made a year-long journey just to hear him. The time of Solomon, and his accomplishments, are not taken from older traditions but from the man himself. Perhaps read some for yourself. The Bible doesn't indoctrinate people do that. The Bible has so much wisdom and knowledge packed within its pages I'm…

Qohelet was most likely compiled by multiple authors well after the Babylonian conquest. The presence of loanwords in the text makes a date in the 10th century BCE highly unlikely.

Solomon the Biblical personage probably never existed. No archaeological evidence, as far as I’m aware, has been found.

Re: Tao Te Ching – Gia-Fu Feng, Jane English Translation (1989)

#77

Post by hnfong »

vitiral wrote: post #65
Vt71fcAqt7 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read eg. different translations of Crime and Punishment written more than 100 years between each other and I still feel that I read the same book and the meaning, even if somewhat blurred, as been perserved. There is no definite meaning to many passages in classical Chinese so all you have is the text itself. It's not a question of if the author can take the meaning from the original and use that to write a new…

It's funny to say there is "no definite meaning" when the action proposed is non-action, the meaning defined is un-meaning, the way is wuwei.

GP is talking about Confucian text for f's sake...

Whatever the meaning of the text that GP quoted, there is a definitely clear call for action, something to do with studying hard and taking on official duties.

Re: Tao Te Ching – Gia-Fu Feng, Jane English Translation (1989)

#78

Post by ralferoo »

suoduandao3 wrote: post #55
Podgajski wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the Bible, you should read Young’s literal translation. It blew me away how much liberties that king James version took in their interpretation.

Is there a difference between '-th' and '-s' suffixes in English? I thought 'seeth' was just an old fashioned way of saying 'sees' but now I'm wondering if this is saying something about tenses that I'm missing.

-(e)th was the Middle English ending for 3rd person singular and plural present tense. It has mostly been replaced by -s in Modern English, except for a few fixed expressions (e.g. my mum used to say "quoth he" which is subtly different from the modern "he quoted" or "he quotes" which is normally followed by an object that is being quoted as well as the quote itself).

Middle English is quite interesting in general, as it still has a pretty regular inflection system for verbs that's largely been lost now (3rd person singular -s is the main vestige): https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Middle_English_verbs...

It's also interesting to look at the case system for ME nouns too, as it makes some things easier to understand. For instance the 's in Modern English for possessive is really just an abbreviation for the -es genitive case, which probably occurred when spoken forms had changed from -es to -s, which in turn was probably due to the shift to drop terminal -e from words which had started even by Chaucer's day (some places in Canterbury Tales you need to treat the -e as its own syllable to hear the rhyme, in other places it needs to be silent).

Re: Tao Te Ching – Gia-Fu Feng, Jane English Translation (1989)

#79

Post by JLangley »

This book (this translation) is a treasure!

I first found it in the early 80s I believe, and then just a year ago I found several copies in a used/vintage book store and bought multiple copies for my family!

For me, personally, the translation REALLY resonates and can provide heartfelt insights. Also, the images are outstanding, and perhaps are a significant aspect to why this book was so impactful to me.

THANK YOU for posting this link! It's also worth pointing out this one to a pdf [with images](https://eheart.com/TAO/TTC/TTCchapters-small.pdf)

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