Friday, December 3, 2010

Line by Line - Verse 15, Line 10

vacant like a valley,
~ James Legge translation, from The Sacred Books of the East, 1891 ~

Hollow, like caves.
~ Gia-fu Feng and Jane English translation, published by Vintage Books, 1989 ~

Open, like a valley
~ Derek Lin translation, from Tao Te Ching: Annotated & Explained, published by SkyLight Paths, 2006 ~

Their minds were as wide as a valley,
~ Ron Hogan rendition, from Beatrice.com, 2004 ~
It's interesting to me that three of the four utilize the metaphor of a valley, while Feng & English utilize a cave. Even more interesting is that the adjectives used in connection with the "valley" are different still!

As with the previous line, the central thrust of this one has to do with emptiness. We need to offer space for Tao to occupy. If our minds and hearts are clogged with information, needs, wants and desires, there is no space available for the essence of wisdom. It is too easily crowded out by ignorance, stupidity, prejudice, pride and self-righteousness.

To view the Index page for this series to see what you may have missed or would like to read again, go here.

4 comments:

  1. Just for interest...

    The characters in question are (in pinyin) kuang (falling tone)... gu (falling-rising tone).

    Kuang has meanings of open, empty, broad, wide, vast and spacious; also free from worry or petty ideas. Some translators interpret it as open minded or receptive.

    There is a ku (high tone) that can be translated either as a valley, a mountain gorge, or a cave. Sometimes people confuse G and K because they sound similar (like the "difference" between kung fu and gong fu). But the actual character of this line, gu in pinyin, is just a valley. Ku, which includes cave, is a different character. I'm surprised that Feng-English would translate it as cave. (I don't know that much about Feng Shifu, but I bet he speaks Cantonese.)

    My Chinese teacher's translation (from the Mandarin) is "vast and extensive, like a quiet spacious valley."

    Arthur Waley translates this phrase as "receptive as a hollow in the hills," which I think is rather poetic and yin.

    I was thinking about this because I was having a discussion with someone about another character, "dong", which on some signage was translated once as "hole" and once as" cave." It is the same character, though in English we make a distinction. Of course, a cave is just a hole on its side.

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  2. And just because I didn't want to be too off base, I went back to my 15 translations, including one in French, and several with the actual characters, and no one else translates this as cave, it's all valley.

    And I see Feng is Shanghainese. Which is yet another dialect.

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  3. Except for the annoying Wayne Dyer which uses cave, but he probably derived it from Feng/English.

    Sorry, this is really intriguing to me.

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  4. You'll be pleased to know I ordered the TTC by Jonathan Star. As I believe you suggested previously, this will help me to understand the Chinese characters better.

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