Question on Zhuangzi

[jachristen]

I have two questions regarding this passage:

 

庖丁為文惠君解牛，手之所觸，肩之所倚，足之所履，膝之所踦，砉然嚮然，奏刀騞然，莫不中音。合於《桑林》之舞，乃中《經首》之會。

 

#1: Can the three characters I put in red be translated phonetically, as in the sounds he makes with his knife (such as the English formulation, "With a whoosh!")?  If not, how would they best be translated?

 

#2: What is the Jing Shou, exactly?  I guess it must be a classical work, but I'm having a hard time finding much about it?

 

Thank you in advance for any generous assistance.

[gato]

Both 桑林 and 经首 are pieces of ancient music according 汉语大词典.

莫不中音 can be translated as "utterly in harmony".

By the way, 汉语大词典 is now available on Pleco. Highly recommend if you study Classical Chinese.

[skylee]

Take a look -> http://ctext.org/zhuangzi/nourishing-the-lord-of-life?searchu=%E5%BA%96%E4%B8%81%E7%82%BA%E6%96%87%E6%83%A0%E5%90%9B%E8%A7%A3%E7%89%9B&searchmode=showall#n2735

 

Also this -> http://edba.ncl.edu.tw/ChijonTsai/CHUANG/chuang-13.htm

 

Whenever he applied his hand, leaned forward with his shoulder, planted his foot, and employed the pressure of his knee, in the audible ripping off of the skin, and slicing operation of the knife, the sounds were all in regular cadence. Movements and sounds proceeded as in the dance of 'the Mulberry Forest' and the blended notes of the 'King Shou'.

  

他手掌接觸到的地方，肩膀所倚靠的地方，腳所踩踏的地方，以及膝蓋頂住的地方，都會有嘩嘩地聲響。等刀子一桶進去，又會繼續發出嘩啦啦的聲音。這些聲音都能合乎音節：能配合商湯《桑林》舞曲的旋律，也能合乎堯帝《經首》樂曲的節奏。

[jachristen]

Hmm.  I actually have the 古漢語大詞典 installed already on my iPhone, but neither shows up in my dictionary when I search it.  I don't see just a 漢語大詞典 listed on the purchase screen, am I missing something?  

[gato]

I think it's still listed as an Early Access experimental add-on right now on the "available add-on" screen. Still some polishing to do.

[jachristen]

I have one more question regarding the same text.  Sorry if it's annoying!

 

Here's the Chinese:

 

 

 公文軒見右師而驚曰：「是何人也？惡乎介也？天與，其人與？」曰：「天也，非人也。天之生是使獨也，人之貌有與也。以是知其天也，非人也。」

 

 

And here's the English from the source Skylee linked earlier:

 

 

 When Gong-wen Xian saw the Master of the Left, he was startled, and said, 'What sort of man is this? How is it he has but one foot? Is it from Heaven? or from Man?' Then he added, 'It must be from Heaven, and not from Man. Heaven's making of this man caused him to have but one foot. In the person of man, each foot has its marrow. By this I know that his peculiarity is from Heaven, and not from Man.

 

 

What I do not understand is where this says the man has only one foot.  My dictionary does not seem to list such a meaning for "介," though it does list one as "unique or peculiar."  Is that from a commentary, or is it a common euphemism, or am I just missing the definition which would make this clear, or what?  I'm sure there's a simple answer I'm not seeing.  

[Kobo-Daishi]

 

What I do not understand is where this says the man has only one foot.  My dictionary does not seem to list such a meaning for "介," though it does list one as "unique or peculiar."  Is that from a commentary, or is it a common euphemism, or am I just missing the definition which would make this clear, or what?  I'm sure there's a simple answer I'm not seeing.

 

 

Look at the 22nd definition for "介" in the Hanyu Da Zidian.

 

Here is a pic of the relevant entry from the online edition of the Hanyu housed at the Academia Sinica (Taiwan) web site.

 

 

And here's a cut and paste of definition 22 in case you can't visit Taiwanese web sites from China.

 

 

（２２）刖，斷足。《莊子‧養生主》：“是何人也，惡乎介也﹖”陸德明釋文：“介，一音兀，司馬云：刖也。”

 

Unfortunately, the online dictionary only covers the 4,000(?) most common characters.

 

I wrote about it at my blog. But, no one visits my blog. 

 

I also added the search function to my search menu so can look up characters when I don't feel like firing up one of the massive multi-volume Chinese dictionaries.

 

Kobo.

 

[jachristen]

Well, this is the second time in the same classical text where my 古漢語大詞典 failed me while another dictionary evidently had the information I needed. Clearly I need to diversify. Thank you so much.

Also, if you deal with this kind of topic on your blog I'd love to read it.

[gato]

汉语大词典 has this as well:

21 独足。

《庄子·养生主》

公文軒 見 右師 而驚曰：‘是何人也？惡乎介也？’曰：‘天與, 其人與？’曰：‘天也, 非人也。天之生是使獨也, 人之貌有與也。以是知其天也, 非人也。’

陈鼓应 注

介, 指一足…… 林雲銘 劐説：‘介, 特也。特足故謂之介。’

[Kobo-Daishi]

This is a snippet from the Wikipedia entry for "Hanyu Da Cidian".

 

 

 

The Hanyu da cidian includes over 23,000 head Chinese character entries, defines some 370,000 words, and gives 1,500,000 citations. The head entries, which are collated by a novel 200 radical system, are given in traditional Chinese characters while simplified Chinese characters are noted. Definitions and explanations are in simplified, excepting classical quotations.

 

Volume 13 has both pinyin and stroke count indexes, plus appendices. A separate index volume (1997) lists 728,000 entries for characters by their position within words and phrases, something like a reverse dictionary. For instance, the Hanyu da cidian enters Daode jing 道德經 under the head character dao; this reverse-index lists it under both de and jing. "Despite the fact that it weighs over 20 kilos and contains a total of 50 million characters spread over 20,000 large double-column pages," says Wilkinson (2000:71), "the Hanyu da cidian is an easy dictionary to use to the full because it is unusually well indexed." It became even easier to use when Victor H. Mair edited a single-sort alphabetically arranged pinyin index (2004).

 

The compact edition consists of three volumes.

 

The abridged CD-ROM version (2.0) contains 18,013 head characters, 336,385 words and phrases (without pinyin), and 861,956 citations. It includes male and female sound files for single-syllable pronunciation, and enables more than 20 search methods. It requires Microsoft Windows, with a Chinese locale setting due to its use of GB 18030.

 

Does the Pleco edition contain the entire contents of the 13 volume HYDCD or of the abridged CD-ROM version?

 

Kobo.

[Kobo-Daishi]

 

Also, if you deal with this kind of topic on your blog I'd love to read it.

 

Oh, no. Nothing like that. I don't cover classical Chinese or anything like that. I just wrote about the Hanyu Da Zidian being available online at the Academia Sinica (Taiwan) web site. Also on a handy Firefox add on to include it in the search menu.

 

Kobo.