This seems to me such an apt illustration of the challenges inherent in translating an ideogram-based text into English--and translating poetry, no less.
Maybe it's more about the text being highly contextual than being ideogram-based. I mean, "li" and "wen" would still have been hard to translate even if they had been written with the Latin alphabet. Of course, Chinese texts being highly contextual and being ideogram-based are kind of related.
Glad that you are enjoying the poem and my comment! Yes, "logos" is a Greek word. I still haven't discovered a better translation for the Chinese word 理(li). Detailed Neo-Confucian debates on 理 and 氣(qi) would take place a few centuries after today's poem, but 理 can be understood as the inner logic or rule of the Being while 氣 is its manifestation or activity. Not all Confucian scholars of the premodern Sinosphere would be happy with my explanation though. (They were quite serious about them, obviously.) I think we could also liken 理 and 氣 respectively to essence(ousia) and energies(energia), as in the usages of Aristotle and Byzantine theology. Anyways, 理 can be translated into many terms.
About not seeing people in comfort, I would half-jokingly say that the phrase is an instance of "Confucian guilt". The word 民(wen), which I translated as "people", often refers only to the people who are ruled, the subjugated class. The Confucian idea is that the ruled should obey and respect the rulers, while the rulers' responsibility is to love and take good care of them. As a governor, who sits "at an aloft spot", the poet feels bad that he has "not seen such people in comfort." However, here lies a tension within the text: in fact, his guests are not commoners, but learned men. The "people", whom he is referring to, are in reality those like the "soldiers" who are guarding him and his guests. The poet does not ponder on this contradiction and suddenly jumps to the plane of metaphysics, musing on "logos"(理) and "nature"(性). I cannot tell if Wei Yingwu himself was aware of this contradiction or intentionally refrained from elaborating further about his responsibility as a member of the ruling class.
This seems to me such an apt illustration of the challenges inherent in translating an ideogram-based text into English--and translating poetry, no less.
Maybe it's more about the text being highly contextual than being ideogram-based. I mean, "li" and "wen" would still have been hard to translate even if they had been written with the Latin alphabet. Of course, Chinese texts being highly contextual and being ideogram-based are kind of related.
Thank you Hyun Woo. Fascinating. Two questions.
Is "logos" the Greek?
Does "not seeing in comfort" mean the host is derelict in not seating his guests?
And I second the compliments on your explanation.
Glad that you are enjoying the poem and my comment! Yes, "logos" is a Greek word. I still haven't discovered a better translation for the Chinese word 理(li). Detailed Neo-Confucian debates on 理 and 氣(qi) would take place a few centuries after today's poem, but 理 can be understood as the inner logic or rule of the Being while 氣 is its manifestation or activity. Not all Confucian scholars of the premodern Sinosphere would be happy with my explanation though. (They were quite serious about them, obviously.) I think we could also liken 理 and 氣 respectively to essence(ousia) and energies(energia), as in the usages of Aristotle and Byzantine theology. Anyways, 理 can be translated into many terms.
About not seeing people in comfort, I would half-jokingly say that the phrase is an instance of "Confucian guilt". The word 民(wen), which I translated as "people", often refers only to the people who are ruled, the subjugated class. The Confucian idea is that the ruled should obey and respect the rulers, while the rulers' responsibility is to love and take good care of them. As a governor, who sits "at an aloft spot", the poet feels bad that he has "not seen such people in comfort." However, here lies a tension within the text: in fact, his guests are not commoners, but learned men. The "people", whom he is referring to, are in reality those like the "soldiers" who are guarding him and his guests. The poet does not ponder on this contradiction and suddenly jumps to the plane of metaphysics, musing on "logos"(理) and "nature"(性). I cannot tell if Wei Yingwu himself was aware of this contradiction or intentionally refrained from elaborating further about his responsibility as a member of the ruling class.
Yours is a rare case where explanation adds and amplifies the magic -instead of ruining it, somehow
I'd have to to think why.
I'd love to hear your reasoning!